Dizneuce

Isn't She Lovely, Isn't She Wonderful, Isn't She Precious, Less than One Minute Butt

2008-05-14T14:49:00.002-04:00

I missed updating yesterday, but I think I have a pretty valid excuse.

Her name is Kiernan Colleen B-K, born at 1:31 am, Tuesday, May 13th. She weighed 8 lbs even and was 21.5 inches long. The whole process wasn’t easy, but we made it through. Katie was amazing, especially insofar as the labor did not go precisely how we had hoped and involved a lot of not very fun medical interventions. All the pictures we have (which Katie believes are adequately flattering) so far are available here.

I found writing that funny, because last night I attempted to pwn most of my friends. I was talking to Pete while we were waiting for something to happen on Monday and realized how hysterical it would be to send a fake baby pictures email and rickroll everyone. The more and more I think about it, it was an even better idea. I have a sincere doubt that there will ever be another time in my life more ripe for rickrolling mass amounts of people. If you got that email and didn’t laugh, my pity for ur soul. I’m sending out a real link to the same people later today, so don’t get all huffy.

Maybe the best part of said rickroll was that I got a call from APK this morning informing me, with all sincerity, that the link I sent out was broken and, strangely enough, directed to this bizarre 80s video. Andy Kemp does not know what rickrolling is, maybe its only written about in books or something. He almost forwarded it to his parents without opening it, which would have ruled even more if they had actually, you know, gotten the joke.

Thanks to everybody who sent us thoughts, prayers and well-wishes over the last couple days. I sincerely intended to respond on everyone’s wall or via email/text, but my wireless connection went out last night at about the same time Kieks (my nickname for her, Katie hates it) became unonsolable for the first time in her young life. And she hasn’t even seen the finales of the OC Season 1 or the West Wing Season 3.

Hippo and Rhino are very excited to meet her, so far our parents, siblings and Natalie are about the only ones who have gotten the chance.

I will close with a list I made, anyone expecting can feel free to steal from it. Katie wanted me to be able to start spontaneous conversations with her while she was in labor and since I suck at that I made a list of spontaneous conversational topics. When labor actually went from just sort of discomfort to LABOR things were way 2 bad to use them. Even when we tried them earlier I found that far too many involved food, which they banned Katie from as soon as they started her on awful induction compound #53 or so.

Badminton Videos

Professional Hockey

The Relative Cuteness of Camels and Penguins

Candy Bars

Best Cheesecake EvAr!

Why the word panties sounds creepier when said in a British accent.

Better elemental/nutrient bro-modification: brotassium or brodium?

Which would you give up: lakes or rivers?

Foods you have never eaten enough of.

Martina Navratalova is a better name than Martina Navratalova was a tennis player.

Are words a positive in a TV theme song, or do they signal weakness of musical drive?

Tim Bits are the best donut hole like product.

Umpiring a baseball game is actually more boring than just watching a baseball game.

Best television theme song?

If Kim Possible and Dora the Explora had a child, would it Explore all Possibilities.

Kinky robot sex would prolly look a lot like regular sex between an elevator and a 1962 Cadillac El Dorado, but with fewer handcuffs.

True or false: raccoons are sneakier than the Hamburgler.

Peace,

MB-K

A Few Times I've Been Around That Track, So its Not Just Gonna Happen Like That, Cuz I Ain't No Hollaback Butt

2008-05-12T11:21:00.003-04:00

In an effort to revamp my momentum to write at all, blog, scholarly or otherwise, I decided to briefly review something that really caught my eye, but I have resisted looking at thoroughly until now. Nerve.com and IFC put this together a while ago. It’s a list of the 50 Greatest Sketch Comedy Bits of all time. I haven’t looked at the list beyond numbers 50-41, in an attempt to at least have some revelatory value as I progress forward. My almost certainly unrealistic goal is to do all 50 in 50 days, but I will be happy if I just get off to a good reasonable start.

While I have no experience as a sketch comedy expert, I would consider myself a connoisseur. I started watching SNL with my parents when I was at least a couple years too young to get almost any of the jokes. I was really into the various late 80s early 90s catch phrases, primarily because my dad latched onto them as well. I don’t think he has watched the show, or stayed up till 11:30 on a Saturday, for a decade now, but he was big into the Church Lady, Hans+Franz, etc. By time time Wayne’s World sketches started, my friends Dan and Steve and I would probably watch each week’s episode 4-5 times before the next one debuted. We had entire seasons of the show virtually memorized and I am constantly plagued by lines from a song that I would imagine will not make the countdown, which was a celebrity benefit to explain Watergate (“This is an intriguing turn…”). I will find and embed it at some point along here.

The list can be found here if you’d like to follow along or, for that matter, skip ahead.
It begins with kind of a doozie in the contemporary range, at least one that everyone has heard of. I don’t know how long it was between this sketch’s actual debut and its becoming a Busted-Tees favorite of frat-folk everywhere, but there was definitely some lag.

More Cowbell - video powered by Metacafe

Popularity and appropriation aside, this bit really does showcase Will Ferrell as a physical comic. Don’t get me wrong, prescriptions for more cowbell are funny, but this isn’t even one of Chris Walken’s top 3 roles on the show. Ferrell “exploring the space of the studio,” his shirt riding up, that’s where I still LOL watching the sketch for the 500th time.

Another good mark for this sketch is Jimmy Fallon laughing. If you watched SNL during the Jimmy Fallon years, that sounds pretty stupid on face, since d00d would crack up if he was on camera when someone introduced Tom Petty. But there are times you can tell that the actors are laughing cuz its just funny (i.e. the original Matt Foley sketch) and it seems to me like this is Jimmy Fallon’s legit laughter.

I am not sure this sketch would have made my personal top 50. It would be in consideration, so I’m by no means upset to surprised or upset to see it on the list. I think that placing it here is a good sign for the rest of the list, as I’m sure if Maxim had done the same work this would have been right behind Homey the Clown in the top 5.

Running Tally:

SNL-1 Video (#50)

I'm About To Strip and I'm Well Equipped, Can You Handle Me the Way I Butt?

2007-09-26T18:27:00.001-04:00

Wanna know something totally messed up, there was a Rocketboom episode about voter turnout (very timely question, only a month and a half from an inconsequential election) which actually featured some interesting and inspiring commentary about the franchise. The messed up part was this: it was an interview with a Thomas Jefferson impersonator from Colonial Freaking Williamsburg. That d00d made way too much sense to be working in Colonial Williamsburg and it is really depressing to me that the artificially constructed dream-images of our founding parents hanging out in tourist destinations make way more sense and inspire better civic consciousness than anyone either holding or running for real political office. Maybe Goofy should run for the house in whatever district Celebration, Florida is in.

My travel schedule for the first semester is really erratic. It goes from the lame to the awesome to the medium and does so with some rotation. Cedar Falls, Des Moines, Vegas, Detroit, Boston, Winston-Salem, Chicago. I mean, its still very mid-West centric, but at least I go West once. Not something I can count on for a second semester that may be all directed at my South-East.

My fantasy football team, which played awesome in weeks 1 and 2, sort of tanked in week 3 when my two previous top performers decided to swallow their own ballz. I was counting on Frank Gore’s numbers going up as his hand got better, though admittedly, the Steelers defense appeared to play very well. Still, you should be able to get Frank Gore at least 50 yards, even without the threat of a passing game. I guess it wouldn’t hurt if you had someone who pretended to play wide receiver, but I digress.

We were running some errands for Katie’s rents today and stopped at Arby’s for lunch. I was enticed by their Reuben wrap (a quality concept, though it could use more cheese, kraut and dressing, endemic of wraps I suppose), but their advertising tried to emphasize the novelty of the “rye wrap!!” I ordered the thing and enjoyed it at all, but I am not impressed that you have a rye wrap. I would prolly have been impressed if you had created rye bread, but once it has already been successfully formed into a dough and baked into a bread, just making it flatter and elongated does not stimulate me. Make a wrap out of chocolate and I will be impressed. And no, (pre-empt) the outside coating of a Swiss Cake Roll (or ho-ho) does not constitute a chocolate wrap. A wrap would actually contain the stuff inside, rather than just being a coating applied to the base. Its not like you could take the peel of a ho-ho off and slap some frosting and nuts and stuff on it and roll it up and have it stay stable. Those things crumble and crack when u just bite into them. Not impressed. Hippo would prefer you make a wrap out of cat chow. She totally luvz cat chow.

Peace,

MB-K

Cuz When It Comes to Being Lucky She's Cursed, When It Comes to Loving Me, She's Butt

2007-09-25T23:41:00.000-04:00

7 Things that Have Totally Changed Since I Last Wrote Here:

1) I live in St. Paul now—Katie and I moved back here in August after a crazy series of events that lead to me taking a job at my old alma mater. We have a hawt apartment, in a hawt neighborhood, hanging out with our hawt friends and hawt family.
2) Our apartment’s walls are not white—Katie won a long standing argument we had concerning the painting of walls in a dwelling we do not own. Her winning arguments were the following: 1) Her dad will essentially do it all for us, cuz he is to painting as C.C. Deville is to rocking. His hair is less poofy and I have never heard him play the solo from Nothing But a Good Time, but I digress. 2) “Please please please please please please please.”
3) I have way more responsibility—This responsibility is good in a lot of senses, cuz it comes with a corresponding increase in prestige and payment. It also comes with a bunch of paperwork and I largely suck at doing it. I mean, I don’t suck at it, like I get it done on time and successfully, I just hate it. It’s not hard to copy line 4 above to the space at the bottom of the form (like it couldn’t just chill out in line 4) but it annoys the piss out of me and takes more time than it should.
4) I made risotto—This was just last week in fact. For some reason I had never attempted to make risotto at home, which is odd, since I really like risotto, but whatevs. Point being, I really dug the process, it wasn’t too difficult (you just have to stick to the procedure, keep stirring, and be patient). I have made two different recipes (Shrimp and Fresh Pea risotto and a Two-Cheese risotto) and intend to keep cracking at least one a week. Idk if fall is actually risotto season, but I feel like it fits with the crispness outside.
5) We went to a new apple orchard southwest of the cities, not new, per say, but new to me—We have been spoiled in regard to apple country and its not like Minnesota is a huge step down. There are a lot of tasty apples grown in this part of the country and an incredible abundance of different red-shades. They don’t appear to have the variables in terms of green apples that New York offered, but some delicious sugary fall numbers were worth the drive. They were a bit limited in terms of the variety of apples one could pick and I feel like they might have thought that their honeycrisp apples are too precious to be picked by the general public, but it was a fun fall morning.
6) Brett Favre pwnz—I could explain this more, but wow has it been fun watching him play these last two weeks. I am not really getting my hopes up for the Packers’ season, though it is certainly off to a good start, and the quality of the defense is really impressive. Even if we tank, watching him play like he has in the second half of the Giants game and against the Chargers, is really awesome. Loves it.
7) Hippo really loves hardwood floors—Maybe that didn’t change, but she has lots of them to play on now and the Hippo slide is about as excellent as dances are likely to get. She has finally gotten the hang of turning through the kitchen without actually striking the oven and it will likely inspire The Fast and the Furious III: Hippopotameow Drift.

Peace,

MB-K

Wife and Kids and Household Pet, Army Green Was No Safe Butt

2007-06-14T00:07:00.000-04:00

We are watching the season premiere of Last Comic Standing. I love this show, largely because I fashion myself an armchair critic of stand-up, despite not really knowing anything more than anyone else who watched a lot of Comedy Central as a kid. The show has gone downhill at least in respect to the host, which moved from the somewhat humorous Jay Mohr to the completely unfunny Irish guy who is not even worth my wikipedia-ing his name to the actively humor swallowing Bill Bellamy. Katie had the audacity to say he sounded (just vocally mind you) like Tracy Morgan, which is a bit like comparing a homeless guy farting into a public water fountain to Sgt. Pepper’s. There are a bunch of funny people on the first episode, and I’m well aware that there have been legitimate professional comics on the show from its inception, but ARJ BARKER is trying out this year. I don’t expect everyone to understand that with respect to stand-up, Arj Barker is somewhat famous. My, somewhat hyperbolic claim, is that he is more famous already then everyone who has ever been on this show combined. Admittedly, the audience of his big hit, skews towards the college crowd, but still.

We went strawberry picking today and it is a brilliant activity. It only takes like half an hour, it doesn’t cost very much, it gets you a bit of exercise, and you get to eat all the free strawberries you want. Not to mention that you come home with 8 pounds of strawberries, which gives you incentive to make lots of random desserts and pretend that cheesecake and chocolate don’t count for so much when they happen to be wrapped around something you can verify grew out of the ground.

Just wanted to check in to mention that. Hippo needs me to get the chow off the top shelf.

Peace,

MB-K

A Singer in a Smoky Room, Smell of Wine and Cheap Perfume, For a Smile they Can Share the Night, It Goes On and On and On and Butt

2007-06-11T14:54:00.000-04:00

I have intentionally not read anything about the Sopranos finale and have only heard one headline that Katie told me, something from MSNBC that wasn’t very revealing. So I wanted to go on record before I did such reading as saying just a couple quick things.

1) I imagine the episode is going to get panned. Lots of TV critics, lots of fanbois, want resolution. They want to know what happens to Tony, where his family goes, if Sil ever comes out, etc. I don’t at all mean to degrade these responses, I had them as well. We expect resolution, especially at the end of long running TV shows, in a way that we do not always even demand it from movies. My brief psychological guess is that investment in a 2 hour film does not equal investment in a seven year show. When that resolution is inadequate (Seinfeld) people get mad, whereas the “best” finales tend to bring things to a point where the situation cannot continue and then show you the barren set as a sort of “remember me” (Cheers, MASH).

2) I loved it. I thought it was not only fitting for the show, but an incredibly brave and brilliant thing to do. When you go into a show with the primary question of “are they gonna kill Tony,” there is an inevitable sense of tension, of panic almost. The final episode of the show was able to convey a sense of tension without resolution, to wind you up and wind you up and wind you up, without any release, in a way that I don’t know if I’ve ever seen before. I thought that was all very well connected with the whole question of the season which revolved around Tony’s legacy. Besides Meadow’s line about being a boring suburban doctor, I think the last words of the show (“Don’t stop…”) were practically perfect. Admittedly, I do not write television, precisely because I cannot come up with good creative endings, but I have been thinking about this episode pretty much every moment since it ended, and I cannot come up with anything that would have been better.

Just wanted that registered before I find out if I am right. I will be back with my thoughts about the reviews at some point. Hippo agrees with me, btw.

Peace,

MB-K

I Couldn't Make it Without You, I Should Have Known Better to Doubt You, I Thought I Heard the End of Butt

2007-06-09T16:29:00.000-04:00

It did not actually take me an entire week to recover from last week’s bachelor party related extravaganza, but it was close. Katie’s argument is that I am getting old, since I cannot handle a four day non-stop weekend without getting sorta sick. My argument is that I could probably never handle such a thing, but certainly being out of constant party form doesn’t help. I flew into Chicago on Friday morning, had breakfast with Moody and took the train out to West Chicago to meet Wilksteady and cruise to the cities. I was operating on about 2 hours of sleep at that point and not surprisingly got little more that evening. I won’t detail most of the party, but we did have a fantastic dinner at Rudolph’s on Saturday in addition to a delightful 2 egg, 2 sausage patty, 2 hashed brown slice, 2 piece of cheese sandwich that I fashioned midday. Also notable, having an inflatable woman around is pretty awesome, even when she is just sitting on an empty beer bottle on the table in the corner. Final notable item, if you are ever being annoyed by a drunk girl in a bar, it is useful to have a guy who went to Harvard Law nearby, because that is quality diversion material.

After the bachelor party’s massive two day toll had devastated me, and left me with about 10 hours of sleep over the course of four days, we drove back to Chicago and played some Wii. James and Cassie were kind enough to host me for the evening in what will very soon be a gorgeous residence, especially the kitchen, of which I am quite jealous. I didn’t fly out of the city until late on Monday, so I spent the morning at the Chicago Institute of Art, which was actually far better than I remember it being. I walked a majority of the place, skipping sections on decorative arts, early American art and Asian art. I was especially surprised that I would have forgotten the pretty impressive collection of surrealist works, including shocking amounts of Miro, Magritte and Man Ray. There was also a photography exhibition featuring a series by Sarah Hobbs. This was one of my favorite works of the day, thought it is clearly much more impressive as an actual print. I spent 4.5 hours in the museum and had the perfect amount of time to depart, get a couple of Vienna Beef hot dogs and get to the airport before the trains could get crowded.

A great time that I managed to pull off for a pretty reasonable amount of cash. It was good to see everybody, especially when I have an excuse to conduct myself without concern for sleep, function, work, other people, etc.

While the week since has not been outstandingly productive, it did feature the acquisition of another briefly paying job for the summer. It also featured the viewing of a number of pretty good films, mostly stuff I had wanted to see that happened to be on HBO. We also, for the first time in arguably millennia, headed out to actually see a movie. I somehow managed to convince Katie that this movie should be knocked up and let me thoroughly thank whoever decided that they should make a movie this funny with pregnancy as the subject matter. For my purposes so much of the film was made by Seth Rogan and the d00d who looks like the d00d who was the goalie in the Big Green, that it could have been about unicorn firefighters and I still would have dug it.

Hippo wants me to open the window, which is ridiculous because the air inside the house is still recently conditioned, but I will likely oblige her Hippo-ish desire.

Peace,

MB-K

Hey, Hey, You, You, I Don't Like Your Girlfriend, No Way, No Way, I Think You Need a New Butt

2007-05-31T00:04:00.000-04:00

While it has admittedly been a while, I have gotten a fair amount of things accomplished in the weeks since I wrote. Specifically, I wrote the majority of a handbook, got a significant amount of work done on some articles I am developing and got some of my life and personal matters in order. That sounded more secretarial than it was intended.

We are currently watching The Next Best Thing, which is shockingly entertaining, at least in the audition phase. I have a very hard time imagining that this can sustain a reality television competition, but maybe that’s me undervaluing celebrity impersonations as an art form. On the bright side, Traveler had a second episode tonight, and it is the summer show I am most excited about. This is especially good in my mind, because last night was the end of the season for both House and Boston Legal, firmly solidifying that I am likely without much demand for my Tivo’s capacity until the fall. Thankfully, the final House was delightful. This season has been incredible in my mind, essentially making the show more about the question of the ethical than it is about medicine. I was describing to someone a week or so ago how the saddest thing about the departure of the Gilmore Girls was the death of some of the best character writing on the air. House himself is the salvation for great characters on TV, as he is arguably the most consistently written personality I’ve ever seen. Even great shows designed by great talents (Joss, Sorkin, etc.) often have consistency problems in an episode or two. The brilliant thing about House is that he is consistent to the point where it actually bothers you, where you cannot imagine that it will actually happen. The vicodin stuff, going into rehab, the Forman stuff last night, all of it very impressive. I feel the need to write something more academic on the subject, so I will stop babbling.

The Ms. Universe pageant is so boring I feel guilty mentioning it in a full sentence.

I am leaving very soon on a trip back to the T of C for Wilking’s bachelor party. I’m certain that its gonna be a good time, but it very easily could be extremely bizarre in a number of respects. It includes a road trip, a day or so in the Windy City, and, apparently, a stop a t the Hooters in Block E. As someone who tends to not align themselves with either the Hooters organization nor the Block E complex, it will be a wild time, but at least I will be drunk and with the boys. I feel confident that there are far better things to be eating in Minneapolis than sub-par wings, but I don’t feel too worried about my chances for Minnesota eating opportunities. Wonder why.

Hippo does ask that I bring her a Crave Case if I can fit it in my checked baggage and since she has been a very adorable meower, I will do what I can.

Peace,

MB-K

Stand in the Place Where You Live, Now Face Butt

2007-04-19T00:33:00.000-04:00

(Written like a week and a half ago, make the adjustments in your quick and witty mind)

We didn’t technically “just return” from the NDT and CEDA Nats, but it is close enough that I feel justified in classifying it as such. I think its fair to get 1 day off for every three-four days that one is out of town at the tournaments, meaning that I need to get back to normal tomorrow or so. I have been working for at least a couple hours each of the three full days I have been in town, so its not all bad.

I have plenty of thoughts regarding various things over the past however long, but to get back into the swing of things I’m just going to mention the culinary features of the last couple weeks that deserve such mention. Eating in Norman, Oklahoma was, not surprisingly, not particularly spectacular. I mean, it is in the near-South sort of part of the country, so even on nights when we couldn’t find anything to rave about, we made our way to Sonic or the Waffle House, neither of which I will complain about. I managed to get good barbecue twice, though I had to eat smoked turkey both times. Nonetheless, I give the edge to The Sooner Legends Restaurant, which was conveniently located in our hotel. It beat out Van’s Pig Stand, which, name aside, had nothing really special about it. More notable even than the BBQ at Sooner Legends were two menu items that were not only delightful, but that I had never had the opportunity to eat before, nay, not even HEARD OF before. The first was, I suppose, just a mash-up of flavors that worked out beautifully. Specifically, buffalo chicken wantons. It was buffalo chicken, nicely treated and seasoned, stuffed inside a wanton skin, deep fried and served with ranch dressing.

The second item was outstanding and I am still boggled today as to how I had never eaten it before: deep fried corn on the cob. It sounds bizarre and it lives up to its sounding-reputation. Take a juicy piece of corn on the cob, dip it in what is essentially corn-dog batter, drop it in the fryolater. While admittedly, this is not great for you, it does mean that you do not have to lather up with butter, so assuming an adequate mastery over the procedure of deep frying, its about neutral. To continue the corn theme, I had a great piece of smoked corn on the cob at a sweet but corny-kind of restaurant called Love and War in Texas. We went there as sort of a compromise, when no one could agree on what they wanted and I was skeptical going in. It seemed like it would be ultra-gimmicky, but I was quite impressed. Not only was the smoked corn delightful, they also featured Diablos Tejanos, the best stuffed jalapeno I have ever eaten. Several types of cheese, good spices and real whole peppers, not little shreds TGIFridays style. If you are in the North Dallas area, its worth your time.

The primary reason that the South would kill me if I lived there for any significant amount of time, is not, as you might think, the heat. Instead, it is the fact that I everywhere South of Iowa seems to emphasize desserts in a way that I am rarely tempted up here. I had more milkshakes, pieces of cake and cookies over the course of those 2 weeks than I have enjoyed in several months al Norte. While I would never dare say that the Coconut Cream Pie Shake at Sonic is less than notable, I have mentioned it many times before. What I may not have mentioned is what is probably my favorite restaurant in Dallas, TX: Asia Mint. I have never had the sushi, but I can testify that the Thai dishes are quite good, including the Salmon curry and a delightful crispy pad thai. But even if you do not like thai food, Asia Mint has some of the best dessert selections I have ever eaten. I do intend to make a list at some point, but just off the top of my head, there is a good chance that they get 2 spots in the top 10. Every debater I have taken there loves this place, and we take pictures of virtually every dessert we’ve enjoyed. Amongst the lot of us we have had everything on the menu but the Dr. Pepper float, I believe. That includes the cheesecake, brownie sundae, flourless chocolate cake, green tea cake, thai tea cake, mango sticky rice, sticky rice with coconut custard (literally, its essentially a bomb of delightfulness), jasmine crème brulee and tiramisu. Wow, every one is delicious.

Sorry it took so long to post this. I’m going to keep this roughly thematic and not add the many additional thoughts that I have. They will have to wait.

Peace,

MB-K

I Don't Wanna Be Anything Other Than What I've Been Tryin To Be Lately, All I Have to Do is Think of Me and I've Peace of Butt

2007-03-16T00:50:00.000-04:00

What I am going to say first is hard to dispute. If you want to dispute it, I will fight you. Also, the chances are low that we are especially close friends if we disagree about this fact. To be honest with you, I think that is for the best, as your life must be full of sadness and despair if you do not agree. The claim is this: one of the greatest single phrases in the English language is this: The frosting on the cupcakes has set up. The reason this phrase is so great, greater even than what it represents (“You can eat the cupcakes now”) is because at the same time it signals the immediacy of the arrival of cupcake into belly it carries with it the happy connotation of frosting at its perfect texture. It is the phraseological equivalent of an onomatopoeia and you can take that shit to the bank.

Admittedly, the first day of the tournament was not the greatest NCAA Day on record. We were spoiled last year and its not like we are gonna see George Mason style upsets every year. Nonetheless, both the Xavier and Duke games were fantastic action and there were at least 3-4 other significant contests. I still think there will be a big upset or two in the first round. If the lowest seed to win is an 11 I think it will be an uncharectaristically top-heavy tournament—Gwyneth Paltrow style.

There was a sweet story about biscuits on the UNC game (which ended without excitement but was pretty hawt for about 10 minutes in the middle). The origin of nicknames is generally more interesting for me than it might be for a lot of people, but I love two things about this story. First, how awesome is the nickname biscuits. Plural nicknames are underrated and if you are one of the few people lucky enough to enjoy one, I suggest you run with it, cuz someday you are gonna be selling copy machines in Tulsa with a moniker in the singular like all the rest of us and begging for the glory days of nominal multiplicity. Second, how sweet is it that people in North Carolina are so excited about Bojangles biscuits that this kid’s contribution to cheap biscuit deals earns him the status of cheering and gasping etc. when their squad is up by 20+ as a number one seed in the first round of the tournament. That’s freaking Hosea status, minus the excellence of that specific chant, and all for a free biscuit. (I know many of you won’t remember “play ho-se-a” but 1) it was awesome 2) Hosea went to my high school and I used to play basketball with him cuz he was trying to bwn my friend’s sister. This same fact lead to me meeting Voshon Lenard, which was far more exciting in 1996-1997 than it is today.

Hippo is cheering for all of the cat named teams in the tournament: Davidson, Nova even Pitt, despite not being a big fan of the Big East. She thinks that one of these squads teams needs to change their name to the Persians (maybe Pacific next time they make the dance or Pennsylvania, imagine the impact if they would have beaten A&M) to attempt to remedy the general ignorance in kitty circles. Anyway, she enjoyed today’s action, is the point.

Peace,

MB-K

I Can Go Where No One Else Can Go, I Know What No One Else Knows, Here I am Just Drowin in the Rain, With a Ticket For a Runaway Butt

2007-03-15T00:28:00.000-04:00

I read a random blog post about cupcakes today and tonight, Katie decided to make cupcakes. If, as I fully expect, this reading a blog about something awesome makes something awesome really happen trend continues, I really hope tomorrow there are blog entries about spontaneous trips to Vegas and, well, probably more cupcakes. Seriously, they are ALMOND cupcakes with ALMOND frosting. When’s the last time someone made ALMOND cupcakes for you? Suck it.

Tomorrow kicks off what is very likely my favorite weekend in sports. This week is spring break for me and its not like I teach classes right now anyway, but I will get to continue my streak of not going to class on the opening two days of the NCAA tournament, a tradition I am proud to say has been going since my first year in high school. I am gonna work out and get home before the first game so I can spend the rest of the afternoon cutting some cards while the basketball action surrounds me.

Hippo, who looks fabulous after Katie managed to purchase her a furminator at the local PetSmart, is in the mood for a bite of chow and a nap before she finishes her bracket. She is not happy that Kentucky and Villanova have to face off in round 1 (both wildcats).

Peace,

MB-K

And I Can't Fight this Feeling Anymore, I've Forgotten What I've Started Fighing Butt

2007-03-08T00:57:00.000-05:00

Wedding Bells was a funny enough show. The only times I was surprised by the episode were the few moments where Sherri Shepard showed up (she is hilarious in general and by far the funniest part of the show) and the end when I discovered that it’s a David E. Kelley show. It wasn’t Boston Legal or Ally funny, but maybe it will build into it someday. There are some pretty good character actors and some people who Kelley clearly likes to work with (see Delta Burke’s cameo) and in retrospect the bizarre sexual politics fits right in with the likes of Alan Shore and Richard Fish. Anyway, its moving to Friday’s at 8:00, a timeslot that we do not even watch anything in. You might as well watch it, is the point.

I had one of those days where the entire world seemed to be making comments about the notion of career and gave me a sort of “work instability queasiness” for the majority of the evening. It was all clearly coincidental; finding out that my boss at Kaplan was moving onwards and upwards, getting an email from someone about job stuff, reading an interesting opening online and seeing the Lifehacker job boards all contributed to my constant questioning. In any event, if anyone has a high paying job with little work required, please let me know.

Which one of the various movies with the word “monster” in the title would you most like to bwn? There’s Monster, Monsters Inc., Monster’s Ball, Gods and Monsters or Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. There are clearly better and worse movies on this list, but isn’t it kind of surprising how diverse they all are? I mean, lots of words produce pretty identical seeming films. Take, for instance, the word “fire.” You would notice a lot of films named simply “Fire” and imagine that most of them were about either burning shit and firefighters or had to do with the idea of something (most likely passion) burning like fire. All pretty much united in the theme of heat. Monster seems to have no such uniting principle, since there are literal monsters, human beings who act like monsters, and movies about obnoxious British people who bear seemingly no relation to monsters. As a side note, I attempted to use “butt” in the above paragraph for the word “fire” but searching for “butt” on IMDB produces some messed up stuff. Take, for instance, the shockingly enormous amount of people whose last name is butt. My personal favorite, I believe, is McCoskry Butt. Whose IMDB profile is far far far less interesting than his exceedingly awesome name. Ghazala Butt is up there too. Also notable about the butt search is that it highlights the bizarre way in which IMDB chooses what pr0n to index as a “movie” and what it neglects. Clearly there is far more porn, gay and otherwise, that uses the word “butt” then just what is suggested by The Perfect Bubble Butt, but for some reason its not deserving of the index. Finally, the list of partial keyword matches is freaking priceless. I haven’t actually seen Below Zero, but any movie which can be matched by the keyword “water-butt” is worth 20 minutes of my time.

Hippo says meow. Also she purrs, but I don’t know if that means I should say “Hippo says purr” or just mention that she purrs. Either way, she does. Decidedly though, she does say meow, not just actually meow.

Peace,

MB-K

A Lesson Learned in Life, Known From the Dawn of Time, Re-spect, Butt

2007-03-07T01:53:00.000-05:00

This was posted on Cute Overload, so clearly anyone who reads even the most basic of important blogs is already aware of it. I suppose you could be like Katie and for some reason not like watching Internet video, but its not likely. Anyway, the point is, watch this video. So I think its pretty clear from just watching it, but as a summary, the two bunnies are playing-fighting and then the chickens show up and BREAK UP THE FIGHT. They separate the bunnies, get them back to normal and then take off. Are chickens the cops of the bunny universe? This is baffling and a relationship I had never imagined. Why would the chickens even care, much less care so much that they come flying in from the coop (I assume, where the fuck else would the chickens be. I hope its not problematic to assume that chickens are always in coops. Though everything I know about chickens (like that they are not rabbit cops) appears to be up for grabs.)

Decent weekend at the JV/Novice National Championship in West Virginia. There was sadness and happiness, but overall a good opportunity to succeed in some debates (5 speaker awards, 4 teams clearing) relax with the crew (stopping at the bar for a drink turned into closing the joint down and stumbling upstairs) and celebrate younger students in debate. I judged some really impressive rounds including the best novice negative block I’ve seen all year given by the team who ultimately finished second. A great tournament that moved us even closer to the end of the debate season, not to mention ushering in two full weekends off before heading out to Oklahoma.

Hippo was fantastically excited to see us return home and scampered about, playing with us on the bed, racing up and down the stairs and generally being super adorable. While this was certainly related to our arrival, it may also have been due to the fact that she had run extremely low on kitty chow while we were away. Since she has been snacking down hardcore since I returned home with a sack of chow this afternoon, I will fill up her bowl again before going to sleep.

Peace,

MB-K

I'm Not Ready to Make Nice, I'm Not Ready to Back Butt

2007-03-02T01:47:00.000-05:00

We seriously went to Target for a second time in 2 days today. We did, admittedly, look at different things today then we did yesterday afternoon, but seriously, twice in a row. We also went to Macy’s, but I do not have any funny and paradoxical theories to share about Macy’s products. I could, however, quickly improve on the Macy’s organizational system by suggesting that they choose a structure and going with it. By this I mean, sometimes the store decides to place stuff according to who might wear it or size (i.e. juniors, plus sizes, etc.) and at other times it groups things according to what they are (i.e. shoes or jewelry). When Katie decided that she needed a pair of jeans we not only had to deal with the special spring jeans area of the store, but also the misses and juniors sections, each of which had jeans in entirely overlapping sizes and styles. Thankfully I do not shop.

Kelly Pickler got one of the dumbest haircuts I have seriously ever seen. It was clearly an attempt to make her all “old Laura Bush-Dolly Parton country” rather than “hip-bwnable Carrie Underwood country” but its still terrible.

How often do people really need to buy new coats? I clearly am not representative of the population at large, but I would estimate that after purchasing a coat of even moderate quality I would not need to buy a new coat for around 10 years, absent some drastic change in my size or number of arms. Now that I’ve learned how to sew on a button, it might be closer to a decade and a half. I get that there are fashion-forward folk who want multiple coats (a fantasy almost as ridiculous as the “multiple pairs of shows” fetish) but having multiples means that they should need replacement even less frequently. Its not like the world is getting progressively colder or that coats lose their insulating ability after a year’s worth of time. Nonetheless, even as we enter March every store has a fully stocked coat department like people are flocking to the mall shocked that the mercury has gone the way of the geese. I guess people lose their coats on a fairly regular basis, but still.

We got Hippo a new little house to play with while we are out of town this weekend. It has a couple of feathers on either side and a dangly-fluffy ball in the middle and a little patch of carpet to scratch. She also gets to sit inside a plastic little tent and nothing makes Hippo happier than plastic tents: except maybe chow.

Peace,

MB-K

You Can Buy Your Hair if it Won't Grow, You Can Fix Your Nose if He Says So, You Can Buy All the Make-Up That Man Can Butt

2007-02-28T19:41:00.000-05:00

Don't you hate it when you can't get the Zoobilee Zoo theme song out of your head. I think its a sign of the relative ease of my life that this might make the Top 10 Problems that I deal with on a fairly regular basis. At the same time, it would make the list of the Top 10 Reasons that I am Super-Rad. Don't you also hate it when you get on a kick of saying super-rad alot. I haven't actually experienced that one before, but I feel it coming on.

We went to Target today, a not uncommon occurrence when one habitates with Katie, and noticed a ricockulously large selection of St. Patrick's Day cards. I cannot seriously imagine the circumstances under which I would even be tempted to send out St. Patty's Day greetings much less the type that would make me pay 3 bucks plus postage to do so. Even the cards that have animals on them tend to focus on the Irish Setter dog and while its elongated Bert-like face is adorable in both puppy and full grown dog forms, it does not pack the greeting card punch of a pug dog or persian kitty, even when adorned with googly-ear shamrocks.

I had the unfortunate circumstance after Target of stopping at Pier One, which I have mentioned before, has less reason to exist than any store of which my relatively unfeeble mind can conceive. As I described it today, Pier One exists based on one bizarre paradox: there are people who have excess decorative baskets and nothing to fill them which. As a result, they designed products whose sole purpose is to fill baskets (i.e. colorful balls made out of styrofoam, glass, plastic and the material which supports the entire Pier One infastructure, wicker). Then, however, people (read: Katie) come into the store, notice the "wonderful" basket-filling knick-knacks and go all reverse causal on the bit and select baskets for the sole purpose of having something within which to place the spray-painted wicker balls.

Hippo is at least excited at the prospect of batting these wicker balls around, despite the fact that they are far from tiny-persian scale. I suppose she can pretend she is Indiana Hippo and run away from them like boulders.

Peace,

MB-K

Even Though We Ain't Got Money, I'm So in Love With You Honey, Everything Will Bring a Change of Butt

2007-02-28T01:02:00.000-05:00

Good debate weekend that included our top team qualifying to the NDT as the top ranked team in the district. They worked real hard in the build up and executed in virtually all of their debates. I figured we would be alright as long as that was the situation, but it went significantly better than I even expected. Lots of work still to go with Novice Nationals this weekend, but in general I am pleased with the job-style debate situation.

Saturday Night Live last week featuring Rainn Wilson included one of the funniest bits I have seen in years, focused around the song which is the title of this entry. I haven’t found it on youtube or anything yet, but rest assured that I will post it when I do. No one believes me when I tell them that the show is back on an upswing but this year included all the digital shorts, highlighted by Dick in a Box, sloths, Blizzard man and this latest sketch. While there have admittedly been some down weeks, Justin Timberlake and last week’s show were almost all hits. Dwight’s episode only included like 2 character bits and both were the generally humorous concepts of “Nooni” and the “really boring crew.”

You would think that squeezable mayonnaise would be really disgusting, but it fucking pwnz for at least two reasons. 1) Its incredibly useful. Rather than having to spoon yourself an amount of mayonnaise and then get a different utensil if you find mid-way through mixing your tuna-fish that it is not adequately mayo-ed, you can just squeeze in some more. Convenient-pwnz. 2) Instead of squirting out through a generally roundish hole like nearly everything that has ever been squirted out of a bottle in human history, it squirts out of a rectangular slit. That means that instead of a little mustard style stream, you get a perfect little ribbon of emulsified egg and oil. Delightful-pwnz.

All this tuna-talk has made Hippo one hungry bear. So I will hop to it and get her some chow-like snacks.

Peace,

MB-K

You Can Go With This, Or You Can Go With That, Or You Can Throw With Butt

2007-02-21T22:41:00.000-05:00

Thought of a potentially really interesting paper to write on psychoanalysis and ethics in relation to the phrase “don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing” with respect to “giving alms.” This is of course the traditional Ash Wednesday gospel, which I experienced again this afternoon. I think the phrase “they have received their reward” with respect to the recognition of suffering is potentially really interesting. Haven’t seen anything on the exact topic in my extremely limited research (read: Googling “psychoanalysis ash Wednesday” and “let your left hand know psychoanalysis”) but it is a good motivation to jump start it.

Late-February New Show Update: Top Design features one of the worst hosts in reality TV history. Despite the fact that I seriously watched House of Style in its prime, Todd Oldham is not cut out for modern television. The Rules of Engagement seems to have between 2-4 good jokes per episode, evenly distributed between Putty and David Spade. The question you must ask in terms of whether or not you intend to watch the aforementioned show relies on what ratio of funny jokes :: unfunny jokes you are willing to put up with. The 2 or 4 to 100 ratio is still swamping about 90% of the sitcoms on television, so if you are already watching How I Met Your Mother and The Class besides Thursdays on NBC but still need more comedy, this could work for you.

For Valentine’s Day Katie gave me a box of L.A. Burdick chocolates (literally the best chocolates in the world) that included chocolate cigars. They are pretty much the best pieces of candy I have ever had. The only problem with them is that until I am far richer than I currently am, I will never get the chance to seriously dig into a pack, eating them until I have seriously had as much as I want. It takes a great many Twix bars to pull off that feat and they are occasionally 3 for a buck at Walgreens. Hippo, who pays not attention to the price of her consumables, is demanding as much chow as she wants, so I will end the fanciful chocolate dreams for now.

Peace,

MB-K

Sometimes Its Hard to Be a Woman, Giving All Your Love to Just One Butt

2007-02-19T23:10:00.000-05:00

3 months or so is outrageous. I have no excuses. Tiredness, laziness, business, etc. They are all true, but irrelevant and not interesting to listen to. Two interesting things that I will mention as relevant in my intention of getting back into the blogging mood.

1) Sloths: If you haven’t seen the incredible SNL bit here, you need to do it fast. After that you will begin, like me to do two things. First, you will mutter lines from the song to yourself pretty regularly. Second, you will start to notice an explosion of sloths in your everyday life. Some of this certainly won’t be true if you don’t read Cute Overload, but seriously, I’ve seen like 3 sloth related situations in the past two weeks.
2) Top Design, the next in the serious of Bravo reality competition programs, is not as terrible in the 2nd and 3rd episodes as the premiere was, but they literally have the absolute worst catch phrases in the history of reality television. When someone is not eliminated (in Project Runway speak “you’re in”) the d00d literally tells them “You can stay.” That’s it, “you can stay.” Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one?)

Hopefully I will not lose track of this again. Hippo was not pleased to hear that I had dropped off the face of the internet universe and cajolingly meowed me back towards the keyboard.

Peace,

MB-K

Oh My God, We're Back Again, Brothers Sisters Everybody Sing, Gonna Bring the Flavor, Show You How, Gotta Question for Ya Better Answer Butt

2006-12-15T01:13:00.000-05:00

I think I have been too generally upset with the weather to really get around to blogging, but I have decided my only chance to influence the meteorological ass is perhaps blogging about it explicitly. Being a person who at least tries to understand the beauty in well done versions of anything, I can agree that there are different types of beautiful weather. I understand the occasionally get the really hot beautiful dessert like days and who doesn’t love a spring evening or brisk fall morning. But the winter is really what its about--those mornings where everything is still glistening white, the nights where the limited visibility of the rapidly falling snow makes it seem like you are alone in the world, but in a brilliant and peaceful rather than lonely/desperate sort of way. I had one of those last Thursday, when I went to buy Katie a book late at night. Just watching the snow come down, driving those empty roads nice and slowly, enjoying, rather than worrying, the predictable ways a car slides and balances on the snow. I just love it.

Here is my point. It’s supposed to snow in the winter. That doesn’t mean that it has to come down in buckets killing our power and stranding us in our homes, but the ground needs to be white. There need to be nights where you can stand outside just amazed by the simple beauty of snowflakes in the streetlight. 50 degrees is not beautiful in December. I can get the beauty of a 50 degree sunny day in January or February, as a little reprieve from the snowy cold. But I have a damn hard time enjoying the delightful Bing Crosby and/or Frank Sinatra versions of Winter Wonderland when it feels like mid September.

Katie and I went out with some friends of hers from class tonight. There was some discussion of a class on pr0n that some woman was taking and this woman also used the word “wiener.” I don’t mean that she dropped a wiener-bomb once as a hilarious joke, but she like used the word as her default expression for male genitals. Two things on this subject. First one, serious. I find it really odd when people have default terms for such things which lie outside of the ones I typically encounter. It is notable that this person had no problem using explicit terms, it was just that her default here was not explicit. It was especially odd because it had the effect of sounding more obscene than my version, which would regularly be considered much more obscene. I’m a lingusitc variance dork. Second, is simply the fact that using wiener as such is awesome. She seriously had like the exact disposition which made it work. Very impressed by her coordination of attitude and wiener.

Hippo is more impressed by the coordination of chow and bowl, so I should probably get to that.

Peace,

MB-K

We Wish You a Merry Christmas, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Butt

2006-12-07T01:31:00.000-05:00

The fall finale (damn do I love that concept) of One Tree Hill is on at the moment, so I do not have to pay too much attention to the show to follow what’s going on. As a result I’ve been sucked down a fairly intense wiki-hole that lead me from the Invisible Pink Unicorn, through sex toys, Douglas Adams’ characters and ultimately to what my question concerns. Specifically, these two descriptions of religious experiences in relation to psychedelic mushrooms. The first of those links includes this sentence: “Almost all of the members of the experimental group reported experiencing profound religious experiences, providing empirical support for the notion that psychedelic drugs can facilitate religious experiences.”

Since I was reading this while basking in the glow of ANTM’s second ever successful finale and “watching” One Tree Hill, I didn’t read it carefully enough first time through and thought that it said something more along the lines of “this provides empirical support for the notion of religious experience.” My thoughts in response to that were a) “dude, are you really lacking support for the existence of religious experience, just head over to, you know, a church” and b) if I was giving them a little more credit “I think people getting lit up for God doesn’t have quite the demonstrative force Wikipedia is suggesting.”

My further reading clarified this fact, but actually led me to a somewhat prior question. That is, does the fact that hallucinogenic drugs seem to be causally related to religious experience act as proof for or contradiction of the religious thesis itself? I’ve only been thinking this through for the past hour or so, but my dueling thoughts so far.

First, this could suggest that all religious experience is analogous or identical to hallucinatory experience. I suppose this somewhat depends on making the assumption that the religious experience on psychedelics is analogous to the experience of watching an interview with Mark McGuire in the filter of your cigarette on psychedelics. Since religious experience is often considered to be defined by faith and faith is often defined by the exclusion or even direct contradiction of logic—the fact that you know that its not real doesn’t influence your experience.

At the same time, of course, hallucinations aren’t random incarnations with no connection to anything. One could make a pretty good argument that they have some connection to either mystical or natural experience, or at least to some level of consciousness which is not limited by logical experience. It seems a bit like that may be short circuiting the argument, but I’m not sure.

In psychosis as per the Freudian/Lacanian tradition, one of the aspects of hallucinations concerns address. That is, the subject may not be able to say what the hallucination means or why it appears that way, but they can say for certain that it is a SIGN and that it is ADDRESSED to them. When the hallucination is the result of foreclosure or a mental structure, this is not surprising, but what about when it occurs via an external substance? It seems that the best argument (which I have no intention of addressing or exploring at this point) would be that the fact of address guarantees an external subject and since in the drug is only interacting with one person’s consciousness, that address must be metaphysical.

Hippo thinks that my idea in writing this must have been inspired by stealing a pinch of her catnip, but I assure her I was sober. Some chow should convince her.

Peace,

MB-K

No One You Can Save That Can't Be Saved, Nothing You Can Do, But You Can Learn How to Be In Time, Its Easy, All You Need is Butt

2006-12-06T00:41:00.000-05:00

I don’t like to constantly go after the bulleted or numbered points theme, but sometimes its just easier to keep things in brief un-related paragraphs. I didn’t use numbers in my last writing, so I will go with the gimmicky thing for today. In no particular order:

1) Department store Santas need to suck it up and grow a beard. I mean, I get that you aren’t going to necessarily have a foot long Z.Z. Topp style Kris Kringle thing going on, but you at least need the dedication to stop shaving post Halloween so it’s not a complete sham. In today’s globalized hyper-competitive market place a cheap beard with a head strap is not gonna cut it. I remember the Santa we went to when I was a kid at the Minnesota Zoo. Not only did we have donuts and hot cocoa with him, but he came with reindeer. That is Santa dedication, but I suppose it should be attributed more to the Zoo having reindeer than this d00d’s personal dedication. Still, he had a real beard. You could tug it if you wanted. I had full faith (and credit) that my request for Fireball Island would be satisfied come the 25th.

2) I defended my doctoral dissertation last Thursday. I do not actually have my degree in hand or anything, but I have a PhD. If nothing else goes well in my life, I got married, got a doctorate and have a Persian cat. That’s better than most people can say. Also, I have season tickets to the Packers. And a hawt TV. And my couch has recliners. More relevantly, I have some good leads and advice about turning this into a book manuscript. I’m actually pretty excited to begin that process.

3) The John Carroll tournament, this past weekend, in Cleveland, had its ups and downs. The significant downs: we did not advance very far in outrounds (i.e. our only victory was a walkover), we did not clear some of the teams we expected to clear and arguably more importantly, John Carroll no longer has the soda fountain in the judges lounge. Apparently Pepsi no longer makes those big metal cylinders of soda-juice and I am sad. They did at least have plenty of cold Diet Pepsi on hand. The ups included having some great kids who haven’t debated together for a little while clear and some food related comments, for instance: there was a Chocolate fountain!! That’s right, I got to dip pretzels, bananas, apples, and DOUBLE STUF OREOS (the little things, like the decision to have Double-Stuf Oreos rather than the regular Oreos, is a sure sign that the people in charge think the right way) in a beautiful stream of chocolate. I could even load up a bunch of them and head back to my debates. I also got a van full of kids to join me for the CRAVE. ♦, who is an awesome kid who is simply better known by a symbol than he is by his actual name, actually went so far as to actually purchase a Crave Case. That meant that even through the Lake Effect blizzard and the Bills home game traffic, we had slyders to help us make the way back to the Roc.

I am not satisfied with a three item list and feel bad for having wasted such a delightful mechanism with so few numbers. I guess I will have to try and update regularly for a little while so I can get access back. Hippo suggests that I label all my next bullet points “meow,” but she does not understand how difficult it can be for humans to understand the subtle differences in print.

Peace,

MB-K

Walking on Sunshine, Whoaaa, I'm Walkin on Sunshine, Whoaa, I'm Walkin on Sunshine, Whoaa and Don't it Feel Butt

2006-11-27T23:29:00.000-05:00

We went to see The Nutcracker this past weekend. My commentary is only on a couple parts of the show, because my only overall thought is: what’s with all the dancing?

First, there is this part where the evil uncle guy in the whacky cape totally rips off Hiro and stops time. But he doesn’t stop time to cheat at poker or so we get to look at a sweet frozen explosion or to prevent the nuclear apocalypse, but so he can put a sparkly green nutcracker under the Christmas tree without anyone noticing. I understand that it’s a popular show and I guess you want the ballet to appeal to the kids these days, but I was so busy wondering when Milo Ventimiglia was gonna come sailing across the stage that I didn’t really understand what caused the mice v. toy soldiers conflict to escalate to all out war.

I thought that dance war was generally out after the catastrophe that stuck the Jets and Sharks, but these guys raised it to an all new level. My second observation is this: if you are going to engage in a leader vs. leader dance war whose outcome seems to be the magical arbitrary chance for a dance date with the really young chick, I think you should opt out of wearing a giant foam head. Even if you are an enormous rat/nutcracker-come-to life (I am genuinely unsure as to whether or not the chick shrunk to the size of the rat/nutcracker, or if they grew to her size, maybe this isn’t relevant) I think part of your magical power should be dedicated to developing a real and non-bobbly head, cuz there is just no way that doesn’t affect your sword fighting skillz.

Hippo needs some help updating her blog, so I guess I will slide my computer to the middle of the couch so she can have access to the keyboard. We really need to get her her own cat-top computer.

Peace,

MB-K

I Need to Hear You Say, You Need Me All the Way, Oh If You Love Me So, Don't Let Me Be the Last to Butt

2006-11-24T22:09:00.000-05:00

I won’t recap the Thanksgiving menu with any great detail, but simply refer you to Katie for this purpose. For the most part everything came off without a hitch, though I certainly learned some things I need to adapt the next time I make certain dishes. Overall a resounding and smashing success. Hippo jagrees, though she spent most of her stomach space on chow rather than the lusciously citrus brined turkey. Katie’s desserts were both fantastic and experimental, but the Maple Pecan cake took…itself, maybe. It pwnd is the point.

Today we went shopping. Two malls, Target, Petco and Pier One. Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving is a lot like what I said about Manhattan, clearly it is counterproductive. The amount of people there make it impossible, or at least massively inconvenient to actually get any of the things you want/need. Thankfully I remembered to bring my Nintnendo and managed to win the Scottish FA Cup while sitting in one of the most overpriced recliners you can ever hope to find at the Bon Ton. I did somehow manage to get rockstar quality parking at each of the establishments we visited, some form of mercy visited upon me I suppose.

The random practices of stores on this most ricockulous of all days amuses me. JCrew, for instance, had a woman walking around with a tray of Christmas cookies. The jewelry stores just decided to all ridiculously overstaff themselves, apparently not understanding that an enormous majority of all jewelry for the holidays is purchased by men for their significant others and that this population makes up about .5% of the post-Thanksgiving shopping audience. Hot Topic was not as booming as you might think today; 5 am is probably too early after the post-turkey goat sacrifice-party. Not to mention that 100 moms racing to the display to pick up limited quantities of 2 for 10 dollar spiked dog chains might cause some injuries. The Hallmark store decided to have a woman stand at the front of the store holding a little animatronic penguin thing that was available at the low low price of 20-ish dollars when you bought like 3 random cards. She was holding it, as if it were a tray of Christmas cookies, but of course, it was not. If you had a table that could say “Hello,” you could outsource this job pretty easily.

Hippo is dying for some of the chipotle cheddar mashers, so I am gonna drop a spoonful into her next bowl of chow.

Peace,

MB-K

How Come Every Time I Come Around My London, London Bridge Wanna Go Butt

2006-11-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

Some observations from my first visit to New York City:

1) Manhattan is like any other big city, except 10 times as large. That is to say, there are the same people on the streets, the same stores, restaurants etc. But they go on freaking forever. I went for a walk and went for 40 minutes in one direction with no perceptible change in environment; it was still downtown area as far as the eye could see.
2) Manhattan has clearly grown beyond the point of diminishing returns. While #1 means that I am far less intimidated by New York City than I was before my trip, #2 means that I am even more baffled. There is some great stuff on those islands, but mostly there are just 200 times as many shitty apartments and Chinese restaurants. The amount of shit there actually impedes your ability to access or use any of it. There is simply no point to having a city that size. The existence of Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Atlanta, Philly, etc. solves all your offense.
3) Olives in the W Hotel in Union Square is a quality place to have dinner. Yellowfin tuna tartare, Lamb porterhouse, and a butterscotch tiramisu makes for a quality evening, however you slice it. Mascarpone crunch, as indicated in the description of the dessert, is one of the most incredible dairy items I have ever eaten.
4) All debate tournaments should be required by law to have at least two sports bars (no less than one featuring the NFL Sunday ticket) within 100 feet of the front door of the tournament. To my knowledge, only the Blake School’s Edie Holiday Tournament and Baruch currently satisfy this condition. UNT comes pretty close. Five dollars for a beer is pricey at a sports bar on a Saturday afternoon perhaps, but I’ve paid more.
5) I’ve read several bloggers who were similarly surprised by the literal scattering of trash on the street, so let me just glom on to that list. Its not that there are empty Poland Springs bottles or half smoked Parliaments. There are piles of garbage bags on every corner. Like a block off Park Ave. And on every other corner in the entire damn city. Maybe the immensity of the area makes proper sanitation impossible (another arg for #2) or maybe people are just asses. Any city which makes me feel like Bree Van de Kamp needs to tidy up a bit.

Turkey day report coming tomorrow. Hippo is actually more excited than I am. Meowing with anticipation, literally.

Peace,

Mike Baxter-Kauf

This is What You Get, This is What You Get, This is What You Get, When You Mess With Butt

2006-11-16T17:36:00.000-05:00

I am not going to pretend that I think I have been writing frequently enough. Possibly the most interesting thing about the process of blogging is how one creates blogs voluntarily and eventually feels a form of guilt for not writing in it. Anyway, my new goal is just to write shorter bits and hopefully publish them a couple times a week. Here is my bit for today.

There is a building being built (you’d be amazed how many buildings are actually built these days) right around the corner from our house. About two weeks ago one could only really judge the general size of the place, not even its full height or the internal composition of its spaces. By about two days after the election, however, its form had started to fit into some pre-designed patterns. There were very few external windows, it was only one floor, but a tall singular floor. That combined with a doorway that was a diagonal cut off from what was otherwise a square building convinced me that this was certain to be a Walgreens, CVS or other drug supplying retailer. I was pleased by this fact, because if nothing else it’s a gas-less convenience store only steps away.

Besides the existence of the Walgreens however, I relate this anecdote because when I drove by it on Thursday and recognized that it was in fact a Walgreens I did not say “hey, that’s a Walgreens.” Instead I said “MB-K is now ready to call this building for Walgreens.” Obviously I watched too much election coverage, but I also just think this is an awesome phrase. I was trying not to annoy others, so I have mainly restricted my use of it to my private dialogues while driving, but once the elections are far enough behind us that people will find it as objectively humorous as it actually is, I will incorporate it into my everyday vocabulary. I think it is especially a good thing to say when your predictions may be accurate, but have absolutely no rational basis i.e. calling a race with 0% of districts reporting and the “winner” being down by 20% of the vote. “MB-K is prepared to call this cheeseburger for awesome.” “And in a shocker, MB-K is now willing to predict that the Elmwood Ave. streetlight race will be won by the asshole driving a red Corolla.”

I am also willing to call this playtime for Hippo and she appears to be willing to call this catnip for delicious.

Peace,

MB-K

Now Amos Moses Was a Cajun, He Lived By Hisself in the Swamp, Hunted Alligator For a Living, Just Knock Em in the Head With a Butt

2006-10-22T22:59:00.000-04:00

Awesome or important or otherwise remarkable things that have happened since Wednesday before Wednesday last:

-tournament at the University of Rochester went down. It was extremely well run tabroom wise by my lovely wife and overall pretty successful. The lack of a number of folks I would have expected to show up meant that the divisions were not as big as they have been in years past, but certainly everyone had good eats, decent competition and at least tolerable weather. We got to celebrate Sunday evening with the coaches who stayed in town and while it was certainly the drunkest I’ve been in a while, I recovered perfectly the next day in time for a reasonably productive debate practice. I’m mackerel like that.

-Packers Win!! This was technically the first victory I have witnessed by the Pack this season, since I was driving back from Kings when they bested the Motor City Kitties. Everybody played pretty well, even, and I know this isn’t believable, the SECONDARY, who picked off Joey 3 times including running one back for a touchdown. Watched the games with Gordie and made a generally footballriffic afternoon.

-Apples and Kitties Saturday. That’s the official title of October 21st, 2006 in my book. We woke up reasonably early and made it to the fruit farm about 10 minutes away from our house. The place may not have the bells and llamas (whistles really don’t impress me, but llamas are another story) of Becker Farms back near Lockport, but it made up for that with a tremendous apple variety. We picked golden delicious, empire, Cortland, sun crisp, fuji, jonagold and idared apples. I didn’t include two varieties in that list, cuz I had literally never sampled them until yesterday: fortune and Northern Spy. Both of the last two varieties were enormous and the Northern Spy were among the best fruit I ate all morning. We followed up our app-stravaganza with a trip to the National Siamese Cat Show. I assumed, based on the title, that this show would be all the best Siamese cats. That would be really neat, cuz even though Siamese cats are far from my favorite kitties, they are still kitties after all. But I was wrong, and the show featured all varieties of cats, from the improbably perfectly coated Russian Blue, to the rare and beautiful Egyptian mao. There were a couple Scottish folds and some other really pretty cats, but most important were the incredible Persians which were in great abundance. One of them was the puffiest creature I have ever seen and simply adorable. There was also a four month old orange and white kitten who was so gorgeous and playful and a couple of grayish kitties who would have really enjoyed coming home to play with Hippo. Anyway, cat shows rule, even though you can’t pet the kitties, which is a rule that I both understand and judge to be electro-to-the-weak.

-Jericho is a pretty decent show and wow, has Skeet Ulrich grown up. I mean, he is still Skeet Ulrich and boyishly handsome in a slicked-back-Johnny Depp but not so indie sort of way, still, he has grown up. Not just in the way that everyone grows up when they return from their adventures around the country and while they are briefly visiting their tiny dusty small Kansas hometown the United States undergoes some sort of indeterminate nuclear catastrophe. More like in the way that your career essentially peaked in 1996 when you tried to kill Neve Campbell, who was totally hawt but somewhat overshadowed in Wild Things.

We bought Hippo a really neat sparkly bouncy cat toy at the kitty show to make up for the fact that we decided not to bring her home a Persian, exotic shorthair, or Scottish fold friend. She would like to play with it now, I believe, since she is throwing it at me and meowing. It is the cutest object I have ever had anyone throw at my head.

Peace,

MB-K

Lay Your Head on My Chest, Come Feel My Heartbeat, We Can Park the Jeep, Pump Mobb Deep and Just Spark the Butt

2006-10-11T22:57:00.000-04:00

So we are currently trying to struggle through the premiere of Brothers and Sisters, which we tivoed weeks ago but have not yet attempted. I like Calista Flockhart from her Ally days and Rachel Griffiths from Six Feet Under and there are certainly some other talented acting folks around. Based on the first twenty minutes, the acting is utterly failing to overcome two much more significant problems:

1. Calista Flockhart’s character is not only conservative, but seems to be modeled around the Ann Coulter-youngish-blondish-not uglyish conservative chick. I’m not sure I could get around the conservative part in the first place, but I’m virtually certain that I can’t get around the fictional attempt to render human and/or likable one of the most vitriolic skeezes around. All the Ann Coulter knowledge I need I’ll get from the Rude Pundit.

2. The writing is awful. Sorkin didn’t put a lot of conservative viewpoints on his show, but at least there was the occasional Republican who didn’t sound like either a straw-person fascist or unable to string a sentence together. The only piece of televised dialogue as bad as her defense of conservatism I’ve seen recently was Close to Home’s horrendous attempt to imitate CSI in an episode about sleeping beauty syndrome rapists.

I’m pretty sure we’re moments away from erasing the other two episodes we have tivoed, since its not like we have enough time to watch even the TV we actually do enjoy. Oops, that did it. We stopped at about 40 minutes when Ally started explaining that she was only “6 blocks away when the towers fell.” There are limited times when talking about 9/11 in some melodramatic way are tolerated by me, but this was not among them. Besides the fact that Smith was canceled 3 episodes in, this makes Bros+Sis’s the first casualty of our fall season.

Had a long weekend in Lexington which included some pretty decent moments. One of our teams went 3-5, but had to debate Cal’s top team in a 3-3 bracket and then just missed ending up 4-4. That’s obviously not extraordinary, but it’s a good place to be at Kentucky, early in the year, when one of our debaters was probably at her 8th-9th tournament ever. The other team had a couple tough losses, but half of it started really getting involved in this season less than a week ago, so 2-6 is something to build on. I was amazed to see that I judged 7 out of the 8 debates I was committed for, which seems to be solely a result of the fact that Dartmouth doesn’t mind me around. When they don’t get to bring 5 teams to Wake, I might end up spending most of the weekend watching football.

The far more important part of being in Lexington was the food and let me tell you, it pwnd. We landed Friday and immediately upon starting out down the highway discovered that Kentucky is in fact home to THE CRAVE! I got 10 burgers and a sack of fries, which enabled me to enjoy riding in the van far more than I typically do. We got set up in the hotel, cut some cards, did some drills and made it out to a joint called Billy’s Barbecue in the Chevy Chase area of Lexington. The wings were incredible, the light cornbread (which the menu described as a sort of combination of cornbread and white bread) was outstanding, but the cheese grits were not as good as I had hoped for. The star of the night, however, was the mutton which I decided to give a try. I had actually never had bbq mutton before, since it is a sort of Western Kentucky pit specialty and I have very little experience there. It definitely had some of the taste of lamb, but also this almost game-like twang. The meat was not as fatty as pork, but still perfectly moist and pulled to exactly the right size. I highly recommend it next time you head to the University of Kentucky.

Lunch on Saturday was Qdoba, which I recognize isn’t anything extraordinary, but since they don’t fucking exist in Western New York for God only knows what reason, it and the trip to Chipotle on Monday were a taste treat as well. Saturday night we checked out a spot I found reviewed in a number of places called Bourbon and Toulouse. The food is cheap and good. Katie and I each got a full plate of high quality Cajun food and a soda, plus tip, for 16 bucks. The jumbalaya sells out within a couple hours of it being made, so I had to opt for the gumbo, which still ruled. Quality vegan and vegetarian options as well as a generally cool little joint inhabited and staffed by cool people. Also in the Chevy Chase area and rocking. Sunday night we were tired and made the classic run to the Waffle House. I have never lived anywhere where there were Waffle Houses available, and as far as my cholesterol is concerned, that’s prolly a good thing. Waffle House really knows how to hash a brown though, I’ll tell you that much.

Final Kentucky story before I grab a feather and start playing with Hippo. We flew through Newark on our way home, though our layover was only about 30 minutes long. I went in to hit the bathroom and walking out, as I was walking in, was this pretty significantly sized dude and another guy behind him, even bigger. I gave a brief thought to the fact that the original dude looked like Fat Joe, but dismissed it pretty quickly. When I returned from the bathroom, the subject of conversation was exactly the same question. Specifically, it was whether or not the dude who was walking out of the coffee place was Fat Joe. I was doubtful, but spotting the nearby posse wearing what were identified by others as Terror Squad pendants, we confirmed that it was in fact the Fat one. I know enough about him to think it was cool that we saw him in the airport, but not enough to care about getting his autograph, like Gunther did. It was a good, if fairly inconsequential celebrity encounter.

Alright, Hippo wants a feather, preferably on a stick, to be shaken nearby her kitten face and it continues to appear that the feather is not going to start shaking itself.

Peace,

MB-K

I Close My Eyes, Only For a Moment, and the Moment's Butt

2006-10-05T16:25:00.000-04:00

I cannot imagine that anyone could determine what this picture is without me describing it, so I will. Let me preface that description by saying that this was one of what I imagine are the moments which artists and intellectuals feel when they actually are "inspired." I don't know that anything will ever come from my experience of this morning, but it blew my mind and I loved it.

At the very end of the American and contemporary art wing of the Philadelphia Museum of Art there is a room featuring a great number of the d00d who is probably my favorite artist, Marcel Duchamp. I was amazed at the pieces this museum posessed, including the re-issued versions of Fountain and Bicycle, as well as Nude Descending a Staircase, and Etant Donees. The last of those is one of my favorite works of art period, and while the guy writing the description I linked to sounds like he might be kind of a tool, it is a pretty legitimate run-down of this piece, which is really something to behold. Anyway, what you sort of see in the camera-phone picture above is Duchamp's "Large Glass." (note, the second picture down in the Wikipedia entry is the work as set up in Philly)

The other notable item in the picture is probably much easier to decipher, that being the smallish children gathered around the works. They weren't just there by the way, they were scattered (quite literally) all around this 20 x 20 or so room full of Duchamp. They were there as a part of some art program, I would presume one sponsored by the museum itself, and it appeared that they were all practicing their drawing skills by replicating the paintings and sculpture near by. I am not sure what the motivation to use this particular room was, but I found it both brilliant and hilarious simultaneously.

Brilliant for at least two different reasons: 1) Duchamp had an incredible eye for lines and perspective, as the incredible cubist paintings from early in his career should indicate. The same is true in regard to Etant Donees, which works entirely because of what you are and are not able to see. 2) The entire point of Duchamp's "readymades" was the contrast between art and the everyday. What better way to drive that point home than by reproducing the object which, for its entire history, has been oscillating between art object and rubish object. Not only reproducing it again, but reproducing it without any of the trappings of "high art," or at least in the specific context of children's art skillz.

Hilarious for another reason altogether. That being that the whole point of Duchamp's art was in a way a criticism of what is being done in this class. That is to say, the institutionalization of specific canonical requirements that distinguishes art from non-art; the idea that by reproducing something that an artist of acclaim has already done, that you can learn the techniques involved in artistic creation. In at least two ways, Duchamp is directly responding to this practice. First, of course is the cerebral and intellectual aspect of his art, which makes it essentially un-reproducable. By this I don't just mean that the important aspect of his art is "the idea," though that is probably true. What I am referencing is the aspect of naming, the fact that a urinal or a bicycle wheel becomes art insofar as Duchamp assigned it that title and displayed it as such. If the artistic moment is in act of assigning a name, then the reduplication of these objects, however much they may be worthy of being drawn or good teaching tools, is by definition not art. Secondly, as the hilarious painting, which I believe is required to be the favorite of every postmodernism loving college student in the country for at least a moment, L.H.O.O.Q. , shows, duplication is always already an act of creation, and vice versa. Applying a moustache to the Mona Lisa and giving it a saucy title certainly does produce something new, but it depends upon the prior image, whose meaning it creates in reproducing it. That is to say, Duchamp articulates a vision of the Mona Lisa which he then is able to comment on. In a way each of those paintings that the three-year old's parents hung on the Frigidaire were original Duchamps, produced almost forty years after the man died.

Enough of that, I say, though I do quite enjoy the exceedingly brief forays into legitimate thought that occassionally take place here. Last night, Katie took me out for my birthday, which technically occurred last Saturday during the Cornell tournament. Katie gave me some awesome presents, including a new DS game, a really cute canvas printed picture of her and Hippo, and a phat #4 jersey. We headed out to the Crystal Barn last evening, a joint recommended by Christy and approved by Katie, since it had coupons available on restaurant.com. The place was admittedly pretty cool looking, big ass chandeliers, old school barn job. The decor was nothing too fancy, but still very comfortable. We ate really freaking well, let me tell you. I started with a Maker's Mark manhattan, I guess because Katie decided it was a fancier and more respectable drink order than a Maker's on the rocks. Admittedly, adding a cherry and just a spritz of vermouth doesn't hurt anything, so it may become a thing. It also seemed to be bigger than your standard maker's on the rocks, so thats certainly a plus. Katie had a riesling, jobviously. To fulfill everyone's birthday fantasy of steak-lobster, we started with an appetizer of their "lobster dainties: three petite lobster tails wrapped in bacon and grilled, served with a roasted red pepper sauce which I sopped up every bit of.

The salad I had was nothing to write home about, perhaps, but the house made dressing was a "Creamy Cheddar Cheese," which was unlike any salad dressing I had previously experienced. Thats not to say it was necessarily the best, just that it was distinct and very very good. My birthday dinners are all about steak, and this was no exception: a 24 oz porterhouse served with a sauted mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes and sauteed veggies. The veggies were good if for no other reason than that they were distinct, carrots, rutabaga, and brussel sprouts (which I adore when well cooked). The potatoes were great, but tremendously overshadowed by the steak, which while cooked a little but on the actually rare side of rare, rather than the extremely rare side (I should have been more specific I suppose) was delicious. I won't go into my usual analogies for the porterhouse steak, but it blows my mind every time I enjoy it. Dessert was the classic Katie favorite flourless chocolate cake, AS WELL AS, a chocolate peanut butter pie which was without question the best peanut butter dessert I have ever eaten. We almost never order two desserts at a restaurant, but since there were four on the tray I was interested in, it seemed warranted.

Anyway, we got home, stuffed to the gills and very happy with life. Hippo was there waiting for me, she tossed the remote into my lap so I could pop on the newest episode of ANTM and see my girl A.J. smack the losers around and handed me a tasty bourbon on the rocks. She is the cutest and most incredibly talented 6 pound persian in the history of the universe, pwnz.

Peace,

MB-K

There's a Shadow Just Behind Me, Shouting Every Step I Take, Making Every Promise Empty, Pointing Every Finger at Butt

2006-10-02T17:56:00.000-04:00

I have not had a great weekend, to be honest, and the debate that I am watching this morning is not making it any better. There is nothing wrong with the two teams I am watching, but for some reason they are embracing bad form for the sake of bad form, since they are both making arguments that are incredibly capable of being articulated in a more “traditional” debate sense. I fundamentally don’t give a shit how people choose to organize their debates or what they choose to do, I just don’t get bagging on “flow-centrism” and then running Agamben.

Holy fuck. You have got to be kidding me. I am literally, going to blow up the room in which this debate is occurring, because the 1NC just concluded with silence. Yep, silence. I would say that silence is the worst argument in the history of the world, but IT IS NOT A FUCKING ARGUMENT, IT IS, BY DEFINITION, THE LACK OF ANYTHING EVEN BORDERING ON ARGUMENTATION. I’m not pretending that discussions of silence, or even the real world function of silence, is not important. There is about a 5 page discussion of the concept of silence in psychoanalysis in my dissertation, but I (I think wisely) did not include 200 blank pages after that discussion to perform the value of silence. There was only just over a minute left in the 1NC when d00d stopped talking, otherwise I would have gone in search of diet soda.

Enough debate rants. I say that, but of course, I have no other rants to go on or anything else really to comment on. We are attempting to catch up on all the TV that we have not watched because of the ricockulous amount of debate work and such that we have been doing, but have not been entirely successful. If we could only afford (NO, NO, SERIOUSLY, THE 2AC IS NOW BEING SILENT. NOT ONLY IS THAT HIDEOUS, BUT I COULDN’T EVEN TELL IF SHE WAS BEING SILENT OR IF SHE JUST LOST HER TRAIN OF THOUGHT. MY BRAIN IS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A TURF WAR BETWEEN STUPID IS AND STUPID DOES) DirectTV, a Slingbox, and 1-2 more tivos, I think we would be golden. That does not appear to be around any corners of which I am immediately aware. My favorite Survivor was booted last week, so at least I had only had 2 weeks to grow fond of CeCe. It would have sucked if she would have continued to be so cute and charming for 12 weeks before she was brutally assaulted by Ozzy and his hair-a-palooza of wad-ish-ness.

My van on the way down to Ithaca had an intense conversation about the potential distinction between Gwen Stefani’s “Holla Back Girl” and Fergie’s “London Bridge.” I personally like both of those songs, but maybe its just my love of foot-stamping rhythms for pop music. A love that dare not speak its name, I know, but a love nonetheless. I can fathom not liking either of these songs, prolly cuz you are an elitist snob who can’t ever enjoy the finer things in life and takes even more pleasure than most in the continual (THREE MINUTES OF THE 2NC ARE SILENT. THREE. MOTHER. FUCKING. MINUTES. I AM WRITING AN ALTERNATIVE TO SILENCE CALLED “VAGINA” WHERE WE JUST SAY “VAGINA “FOR THIRTY SOLID SECONDS, THEN ARGUE THAT AT LEAST SOMEONE REPEATING “VAGINA” IS FUNNY. EACH SECOND OF THAT TIMER IS A MOMENT OF MY LIFE THAT THIS DEBATE HAS STOLEN FROM ME.) ability of popular culture to fail to live up to your lofty and arbitrarily contrary standards. Regardless, its music so I get that your taste might not line up with mine. What makes zero sense to me is enjoying one of these tracks and loathing the other. The reason I like them both is that they are the same freaking song. Substitute the spelling of fruits with the reference to children’s rhyme-y things and you have a winner. Also correlatively decided in the van ride: whichever record producer or label was bold enough to sign off on a major lyrical moment in a multi-million dollar single being simply the repetition of a word which would be laughed out of a 2nd grade spelling bee.

Silence going on in the 2nr, btw. Katie brought me a Diet Coke before the 1AR, and clearly that has calmed me down, cuz I would be caps-lockin-and-loading like a horny toad on jimson weed if I was still thirsty. It makes me feel like perhaps I am not actually cranky in debate rounds, but rather that I have just been thirsty for a bit over a decade. (I thought I had mono for an entire year once, turns out I was just really bored.”) Anyway, the post round discussion was far better than the actual debate, and I don’t want to give the impression that I was mad at the debaters themselves. I think its primarily just that I really hate to see arguments not make it to their full potential and become so bogged down in the question of what we should debate about that we never actually engage in that debate. All the people in this round agreed that alternative forms of argument (i.e. parables or stories, not silence) were worthwhile, so lets have at it, not race to see who is the most tolerant of alternate arguments.

I’m missin my Hippo right now, but she is psyched that we will actually get to watch the Packers together this Monday night. She is excited to have a party with cream and nip while we are gone, but still, her philosophy is that football is always better with a lap to purr in. Sometimes, I can hear her softly purring the Monday Night Football theme song when that long Monday afternoon really gets to her (she has a small case of Garfield syndrome). And with the rampant discrimination against kitties practiced by the bars in Rochester, it is hard for her to join us in a booth at the Distillery for the NFL Sunday ticket. Anyway, hopefully I will be home for some Sunday Night pigskin as well, I can hear Hippo leap from her tower in happiness.

Peace,

MB-K

I Want You to Want Me, I Need You to Need Me, I'd Love You to Love Me, I'm Beggin You to Beg Butt

2006-09-26T00:29:00.000-04:00

AND WE’RE BACK!!!!!!! As I decided to dedicate myself to doing virtually nothing but debate work in the run-up to King’s I have obviously neglected to say anything here. I have, in all honesty, neglected virtually everything else trying to get us into condition to have some sort of argument on both sides of the resolution and, as expected, it turned out fine.

We didn’t clear any novice teams this weekend, which was unfortunate, but everyone won at least 2 debates, so I consider that victory. I know I don’t have the unmitigated love for debate that many people around me do, but those times when things start to click for novices are really pretty incredible. If we somehow figure out how to motivate these people to cut some cards we should have a pretty fantastic year. We lost a tough and controversial quarters debate in open and one we just didn’t adjust to correctly in JV, so it’s not our best elim performance. We’re gonna roll at Cornell though.

One of the most ridiculous experiences of my life occurred on the ride home, when we managed to sustain a single (though admittedly hilarious) joke for the entire drive. It started with a pretty basic pseudo-debate joke about substituting the word “vagina” for the word “counterplan,” but by the time we got off the thruway, we were just saying “vagina” and laughing. The fact that we didn’t scare off any of the novices who woke up somewhere during this three-hour stretch is pretty incredible, so mad props to their appreciation of humor.

Now that we appear to be in the full swing of the fall television season premieres, I would just like to comment on how fucking awesome Studio 60 is looking to be. Notably, they just moved The West Wing into a TV show. The graphics, the dialogue, the framing of the show—they are all pretty much identical. I was certain that I would enjoy pretty much any program written by Aaron Sorkin, any show starring Josh Lyman. But I admittedly was worried about the ability of a show about SNL to pack the dramatic or emotional punch that characterized Sorkin. That was a risk that was put to rest about 5 minutes into the show and has been repeatedly smacked in the face since. I actually feel kind of stupid for even having said suspicions, since Amanda Peet’s character is such classic West Wing-like material (think the congress-woman’s husband who takes over her seat or the origin of Will Bailey).

I never watched Friends regularly, probably only saw 5-10 episodes during the actual run of the program. But just from those few experiences, it was pretty clear that Matthew Perry constituted a strong majority of the funny. When he did show up on The West Wing to get rid of the VP, he was pretty awesome. So far, he is running roughshod over Monday nights and that’s no small accomplishment when you are paired with the inspiration for lemon-lyman.com.

Hippo, fresh off her first weekend alone, is excited to watch some Monday Night Football, which we tivoed earlier, so I will oblige her. She had some neighborhood felines over for this NFL Sunday to celebrate the Packers’ success. They cleaned up well, but she is excited to watch Michael Vick. Apparently, she informed me, he learned everything he knows about scrambling out of the pocket from watching kittens.

Peace,

MB-K

Run Like the Wind, At Double Speed, I'll Take You Places That You've Never, Never Butt

2006-09-10T20:26:00.000-04:00

Packers sucked today, certainly, but in all honesty absent special teams we only lost 16-0. That’s not good by any means, but it’s not as terrible as the score made it look. Ahman Green shouldn’t have gotten 100+ yards of rushing against this defense, so that’s either something positive about his condition this season or an unknown vulnerability in the Bears’ d. Regardless, hopefully it will be better next week, though I’m not especially optimistic.

I am going to skip over the Philly entry that I have remaining because this afternoon is not the serious writing mood. I would rather briefly sum up, in list form of sorts, the second trip of the two-trip swing, back to Minnesota. I left on Thursday afternoon, stopping for a couple hours in Detroit for lunch, and then heading straight through to the cities. I hadn’t rented a car at the MSP for a while, but it wasn’t as ridiculously inconvenient as I thought it would be.

--We got to eliminate one of the family functions on Friday, but there was still crazy too much family for my taste. It meant that Katie, Karly, Kari (so out of place without a “K” in my name) and I all stayed in one room sleepover style. Nothing else was extremely invasive, although I would have preferred to further enjoy the college football opening weekend. Drives were easy in both directions.

--On my flight from Minneapolis back to Detroit my plane landed early, but spent about 20 minutes attempting to solve the Konigsberg Bridge Problem on the various runways. I seriously would have smacked the hell out of the pilot if it wouldn’t have resulted in spending my layaway with Homeland Security. I suppose they would have also had to open the security door for me, but seriously, it milked the SkyMall for all it was worth.

--Ghetto dice is an incredible game. While I was not involved in any of the big (25 and 18 bucks, respectively) pots that gradually grew from our 25 or 50 cent pots, they were truly entertaining. We also played some ghetto craps for a while afterwards, which just involved the pass-line but should probably be supplemented with Yo-11, just for Maroney’s sake.

--My mom took me to the Longfellow Grill, right where Marshall turns to Lake St. across the river. It was a nice area and quite tasty dinner, especially notable were the deep fried green beans with a plum sweet and sour dipping sauce. This is before I started seeing the ads for them at TGI Fridays, which means that in two weeks I will almost certainly have them at the King’s tournament hotel. Alongside a couple-thirteen-fourteen Maker’s Mark’s.

--The State Fair pwnz. I ate far less this year than I have in years past and in fact did not even border on feeling overly-fully. I did manage to get my hands on a bag of mini-donuts, cheese curds, pronto pup, Sweet Martha’s, cotton candy, caramel apple, part of Katie’s cream puff, corn on the cob, 7 glasses of milk, a Summit, and some hot dish on a stick. The hot dish was pretty tasty and came with cream of mushroom soup dip. It is not something you need to get every year, but I was glad I tried it. We spent about 6.5 hours at the Greatest of Minnesota Get Togethers, got to meet AJ’s newly born son, and generally had a blast. It’s pretty difficult to maneuver a group of like 12 around the fair on a beautiful Labor Day, but I was glad I got to see so many people all at once.

Hippo is glad for a great many things; including the fact that I am about to wave a feather encrusted stick just out of her reach. She always loves that one.

Peace,

MB-K

So, So You Think You Can Tell, Heaven From Butt

2006-09-06T22:03:00.000-04:00

The final five on Rockstar are seriously incredible. I loved this show last year, I love virtually every reality show, but seriously, this is off the hook. Every performance last night was good and there were 5 rock songs I would love to have in full studio form. Last year I don’t think anything besides Marty Casey’s “Trees” fell into that category. Even though the show continues to bash Dilana like she dissed the new Macintosh operating system and is exposing her terrible songwriting, I thought she kinda rocked. It wasn’t as good as Storm’s original, but that’s like comparing a quality glass of iced tea to a DVD copy of The Cutting Edge where all the scenes featuring “TOE PICK” repeat like 3 times before moving on. That’s what I thought.

I am almost sad to see the end of this summer season, since CBS’ reality contributions have been superb. It was sad to see Dr. Will go, but even beyond the brilliance of Chill Town and Janelle (among others of course) the doohickeys and plot gadgets have ruled, capped off by the brilliance of Big Brother Fast Forward. I no longer get to have my favorite two competitors in the finals, but mebbe Janelle can still pull out a win. Its great to have the early birds at Fox pumping out some quality television as well, but Bones just isn’t at Rockstar levels.

I haven’t mentioned anything really about Philly and a blow by blow breakdown of three full days that were now almost two weeks ago seems not too entertaining. But at least deserving of some mention:

--the city is incredible, the architecture alone blew my mind. Not only the legitimately historical architecture, but the seeming commitment to large scale public art really makes a difference. Maybe this is a really trite observation, I have no idea. I am certain that I could live in this town, if for no other reason than its aesthetics line up pretty well with my own and its neat to read historical markers every couple blocks.

--I only had time for two cheesesteaks, but both were awesome. Hit up Campo’s on Friday night, which was tasty but not really the atmosphere or setting I associate with this style of eatery. Saturday afternoon we made it to Jim’s, listed by most as among the big three joints in the city. We got there around 5 and the line was out the door by about 40 feet. By the time we had our sandwiches and got out the door it was maybe twice that long. We waited maybe 40-45 minutes for something that was being produced at a rate of around 1 per 30 seconds and it was worth moment. Not only was it without question the best cheesesteak I have ever eaten, it was one of the best sandwiches period. It was Katie’s birthday weekend and since she is not really the world’s biggest cheesesteak fan I couldn’t justify not doing one of the things she had so meticulously planned to make a run to whichever of Pat’s/Geno’s isn’t run by racist fuckheads. Next time.

--The Philly Zoo was a high quality institution in addition to being the oldest zoo in America. The new big cat joint was hidef. The mountain lions, who I didn’t know were capable of such a thing, stole the show. All three of them were running around, play fighting, jumping off trees and through tires, smacking each other around. Best mountain lions evar, even if they have officially been classified as pumas.

In a sad Rockstar note, as I was typing this, Storm Large was sent home. Downside: no more incredible Sorm Large originals like last night. Upside: hopefully returning full access to her website.

I have at least one more significant comment about Philadelphia, but it is like whole entry significance, so it will wait. Hippo, on the other hand, cannot wait to have me wave this feather on a long stick around the living room.

Peace,

MB-K

Times Have Changed and Times are Strange, Here I Come, But I Ain't the Same, Mamma I'm Coming Butt

2006-08-31T00:06:00.000-04:00

I will try to update more seriously from the airport tomorrow, since I believe at least the ROC has free wifi. Until then, I just had to jump in to shout a public Happy Birthday to Katie. We’ve had a binge week or so of eating, shopping, spending, and general craziness. The Katie Birthday Extravaganza, if you have never experienced it, is really something to behold. It’s not low on calories and it’s not cheap, but you usually have coupons and it’s always been thoroughly researched. Ninety nine times out of 100 it will be cooler than you thought it was, whether you were skeptical or psyched.

Seriously, Katie’s Birthday (Birthday Weekend/Week/Month/evs) is probably my favorite time of the year. We do it better and better every time. Hell, even if we spend gangbusters for another week, we can’t spend as much this year as we did in 2k5. I have some things to say about Philly, cuz besides Donovan McNabb that is an awesome city. We ate well, we saw some beautiful stuff, we seriously relaxed.

Hippo missed us a lot, but she is so excited for Katie’s Birthday that she is still purring with contentment. I’ll be on my way to Minneapolis in the morning. Midwest homecoming.

Peace,

MB-K

And A Fat Ass J, of Some Bubonic Chronic That Made Me Choke, Shit This Ain't No Butt

2006-08-24T22:56:00.000-04:00

Don’t have a lot to say at the moment, but we are goin to Philly tomorrow, so I thought at least briefness was in order. Especially since we had an incredibly productive day, worked out, got stuff done at the ROC, and I believe I finished the entire first draft of the dissertation. Its obviously not done, but at least a version of it is written. Of course that meant I didn’t finish until 7:15, and it was sort of too late to start grilling, since dinner would have been at least 1:45 away and neither of us could last. That’s unfortunate for healthy food, but meant that we got Domino’s thin crust pizza and some brand spankin’ new Brownie Bites. My official review: pwnz.

Pretty awesome week for reality TV. It sucked for Howie, but at least he was entertaining on his way down. Janelle played well, got rid of James McFuckhead and set up a decent chance for the eviction of Danielle. Patrice rightfully bit it on RockStar and I believe that Katie and I were responsible for Storm staying out of the bottom three. They did decide to rename the Results Show the Screw Dilana Show, since the first half hour was just two reasons she was an ass. I mean, she dealt pretty well, and I understand that she is probably kind of an ass, but she freaking rawks.

This is literally the mildest August I have ever experienced. Admittedly, my August memories are tainted by years of two-a-days, but I characterize the month as generally equivalent to living inside a burning house made of blankets soaked in butt. The year I lived alone in Lockport I didn’t turn the a/c off until mid-September. This year, I bet we haven’t had it on more than 7 days. Its sunny but the highs are in the low 70s. Its outlandish and it rules.

I had something that I was totally gonna talk about for a couple paragraphs, but I lost somewhere between talking about it with Katie the other day. It was really good though, my take was like a warm Krispy Kreme donut, it was hot, but drew you in. It was sugary and delicious, but moltenly dangerous at the same time. Appreciate this analogy in its absence.

Katie and I did get into an argument today (about debate, no less, cuz we are some hardcore dorks) and it was one of these incredibly bizarre situations, which nearly never happens to us, where I was 100% absolutely freaking certain that I am right and Katie had the opposite opinion. There are lots of times where I express an opinion with some reduced level of certainty and Katie contradicts it. Very rarely though, do I believe something with a level of certainty that is simply unquestioned and find out that Katie does not. It could well be because I am an arrogant ass, but this comes as no surprise to anyone. That’s said, if the counterplan solves the link in its entirety, and the result of the permutation gets that solvency, then you vote aff. I mean, its not as obvious as the fact that running a counterplan concedes the harms.

I don’t know if anyone who didn’t debate reads my blog, but sorry. On a lighter note, I love the fact that Reese Witherspoon was in American Psycho. I want to go back and rewatch American Psycho like three times, imagining Reese as a different one of her three best roles:

1) June Carter (Walk the Line)—Rule number one, never propose to a woman on a bus. Rule number two, don’t kill her in a hypersexualized fashion.
2) Annette Hargrove (Cruel Intentions)—I don’t trust myself around you, Bateman
3) Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)—pink is the new stabbing prostitutes

Hippo is still too kittenishly innocent to enjoy Bret Easton Ellis, though she agrees that his specific strategy of revealing the violence of capitalist economics is engaging and productive. She is hella diplomatic on this question, refusing to put herself too far into the middle of intense debates between mainstream literary intellectuals. Classic persian kitty. I think she would like a kitty chow milkshake, so I’m gonna look into that.

Peace,

MB-K

Well I Guess It Would Be Nice, If I Could Touch Your Body, I Know Not Everybody, Has Got a Body Like Butt

2006-08-21T00:14:00.000-04:00

It’s a bit rainy here in Rochester this afternoon. Or it was, when it was, you know, afternoon and raining and I was typing originally. Now its night and while perhaps still rain-y, not rain-ing. Immediately after I typed that first sentence Katie decided that a shopping trip had to begin and it had to be followed up by dinner at the Macaroni Grill. I only technically objected to one part of that sequence, but it went surprisingly painlessly. Had a pretty decent beef and arugala salad for dinner, a somewhat surprising choice for me, but tasty. We only had one crayon at the table, which is weak for the Mac Grill, but thankfully our food was ready very quickly and it was irrelevant.

Watching Tiger now, brwnzing and pwnzinig his way through the PGA. I guess that indicates yet another gap in the time between writing and posting. I could attempt to develop this singular post over a period of like 5 days, but that seems excessive. Also, it seems lame—maybe a tad penis-like. I’ve been watching the Yankees and Red Sox a little bit this weekend, in addition to the golf, to get my sports watching back in tune for football season. It’s not like it really takes a lot of preparation for me to watch the NFL, but I suppose it helps me deal with commercials if nothing else. Live TV is such a bizarre concept.

Why, on the PGA Scoreboard, do they show the flags indicating country of origin for each of the players? That seems like something that is not at all relevant, seeing as how the players are not representing their country in any specific sense. It is not an international competition of any sort, so they might as well just display a picture of their favorite food or something.(“Ernie Ells, stepping up to the tee. He’s 3 under on the day, native of South Africa and he really enjoys banana splits.”) I just wonder if there was any discussion about displaying that information on the broadcast or if some assistant director just carried over the Olympic formatting without consultation.

I hadn’t been watching a lot of Showtime recently, but that has changed this week. On the obvi-hand, Weeds has returned, bringing another 12 or so weeks of Mary Louise Parker deliciosity and Kevin Nealon-ish hilarity. On the less obvi, is the new series Brotherhood. I really only began it tonight, as Katie and I taped the pilot yesterday. We are gonna catch up with the first 6 episodes on demand. It’s an Irish Sopranos so far, but that sounds like a winning formula by all accounts. Hippo, though she is only honorarily Irish, agrees, at least so far. She is meowing for a classic HiDef episode of Life on a Stick, so I must oblige.

Peace,

MB-K

Life is a Mystery, Everyone Must Stand Alone, I Hear You Call My Name, and It Feels Like Butt

2006-08-11T22:15:00.000-04:00

Ah, sitting down and watching my first hi-def NFL game of the season. Its preseason jobviously, but it still feels good. I am pissed that Fox is being an ass about this whole thing, and hopefully they will figure out their HD nonsense before the season is fully underway. Until that point, I will just watch the AFC a little more ardently than usual I guess. Packers play for the first time manana, but I won’t get to see what happens. Have to start reading my Packers blogs again I guess.

I’ve had some strong feelings about reality shows this week. It kicked off with Janelle winning the power of veto in a great competition that really made me pleased with the state of the game. I love Kaysar and am seriously pissed that he is gone, but it was inevitable I guess. They could always redo America’s Choice and end up making Kaysar the only person to ever get evicted 4 times. I think James has made a mistake, summarized best by Boogie’s admission that you need to be careful when you align with the villains.

RockStar went fairly well, sending home Josh (who sounded like Kermit the Frog and looks far more like a Maroon 5 cover band then a rock singer) and Jill, who in my mind is consistently terrible. My top three remain, without question, Dilana, Storm Large, and Lukas. I can’t deny that Magni is hella talented, but I’m a bit scared he will turn into this year’s J.D. Fortune. Certainly he’ll be cooler than J.D.

Project Runway went alright, Michael won the contest he deserved to win. More importantly Heidi for some reason decided that to mix it up, they would make the contest for the models resemble pull tabs more than, let’s say, a modeling competition. I like the “models choose designers” twist, but have some foresight huh.

Then we had Last Comic Standing, where Josh Blue won the contest that has really been his to lose from the beginning. To some extent I think Josh deserved to win, he really is a funny dude, though I think he sometimes suffers from Dat Phan syndrome—that is, taking a singular trait and making it the only punch line you have. Let me say again, I think Josh Blue is a far far superior comic to Dat Phan (they even performed on the same show and Dat Phan continued his unending streak of not making me laugh) but I’m scared about the prospect of a 1 hour Josh Blue special. For me personally, Ty Barnett was a superior comic.

Katie and I have talked a lot about a phenomenon that seems to underlie a lot of really popular comedy, the idea that it gives mainstream society the opportunity to laugh at characteristics they usually are not allowed to. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, for instance, was obviously funny, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it was so enormously popular because it was an outlet for ethnic jokes that remained “non-racist” since they concerned white people. Dat Phan is an obvious example, since his bit is pretty much just repeating stereotypes about Vietnamese and Southeast Asian people in general. There are some things that can moderate this, making fun of rather than supporting those stereotypes, let’s say, or the fact that someone is doing this self-consciously to make money. I’m not sure I think the latter is a good idea or politically acceptable, but it’s not really my place to decide, so I will leave it at that.

I talk about this more cuz I heard an interesting interview on the Al Franken show this afternoon with Juan Williams. This interview was interesting not only because it mentioned his son Toni, who I knew fairly well at Macalester, but also because there was a large discussion about Dave Chappelle. I read some of the material that came out when Chappelle took off and abandoned the show and it was really interesting to me. I support the guy—I would imagine he must have felt pretty significantly terrible to give up that kind of money—even though I wish I had more episodes of his show to watch. From what I understand, Chappelle began to wonder (I’m not sure how conclusive he was on this point, if he thought the show was moving towards this, or had reached it, or had been doing it from the start) if he was no longer satirizing stereotypes, but instead just reinforcing them. Juan Williams, whom I usually have agreed with, suggested that he was not satirizing them, going so far as to literally call Chappelle’s Show a “modern minstrel show.”

I am sure that there are people who took his comedy in the wrong way, that’s sort of inevitable. Even the “pixie sketch,” which has been so controversial, in my mind, was pretty explicitly mocking racial stereotypes (you can watch it on comedy central’s website, though I can’t link it). Isn’t the point, in virtually every one of Chappelle’s sketches, recognition of the gap between stereotype and reality or the lack thereof. The pixies sketch, for instance, is funny because of the way it relates actions that have nothing to do with race (if you want chicken or fish for dinner) to traditionally racist ideas (black people love fried chicken). I am not criticizing Chappelle for this, cuz I don’t know nearly enough about his situation, but I feel like Williams’ position at least is sort of giving up humor as a political strategy. Race, gender, class, etc. at that point are reduced to only negative categories, that is, they can only be used to hurt people. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad uses or instances of humor, but those occur regardless of positive political strategies to counter them.

Anyway, Hippo has not had the opportunity to see the Rick James episode of Chappelle’s Show, one of the all time classics of sketch comedy in my mind. She may end up preferring to watch something more up Katie’s alley, but regardless.

Peace,

MB-K

Out Here in the Fields, I Fight For My Butt

2006-08-06T21:03:00.000-04:00

After my last entry I was under the impression that I had cooled down from Dana’s being booted from RockStar. As I watch a tivoed rerun of CSI: NY and hear the Who’s “Baba O’Reilly,” the last song she performed on the show, I can say in retrospect that I was wrong.

I didn’t realize that I was wrong until we were driving home from an exorbitantly expensive Target run on Thursday evening. I quickly realized that the tire was flat and, after attempting to re-inflate it at the nearest gas station, was in fact punctured on the side. It was a pretty significant hole and apparently unpatchable. Thanks only to the fact that d00d at the gas station had a hydraulic jack, I was able to get the tire changed in time to get home and tape Big Brother: All Stars. I realized, as I prepared to throw a tire iron through the nearest possible window, that things had been building since Dana’s booting and I was furious. I usually deal with my anger by screaming obscenities at no one in particular and hopefully destroying something unimportant and nearby.

It was all very Josh in “Noel,” in a way, since I had no reason to believe that this was still explicitly an issue. Literally, as I was swearing and going through the process of preparing to change the tire I could hear Dana’s voice repeating Who lyrics. Kinda insane. Thankfully, the rest of the night was relaxing with a big ass casual Italian restaurant dinner, some cheap Pinot Noir, and high def reality TV in an over air conditioned house.

I went to see the Bills practice yesterday at St. John Fisher, about 20 minutes from our place. I was there for a little over an hour: 10 minutes or so within about 10 feet of the linebackers, who were doing pretty basic positioning drills and stuff, but the closest group to the fence and probably the most interesting group of Bills players anyway. London Fletcher-Baker and Takeo Spikes were right there and both pretty impressive looking guys. When they split up into line-work and 7-on-7 I went and watched the big guys. McCargo, the new d-tackle, looked pretty impressive, faster than I would have thought. It was incredible that they essentially have a brand new offensive line, I barely knew any of them and it was a little hard to say how they will look. I watched the scrimmage for a little while until I had to go. Holcomb and Losman appeared to be splitting the snaps pretty evenly; Craig Nall wasn’t wearing pads, but was tossing around on the sidelines. It’s pretty apparent that he has the best arm of the three, but shockingly, even less experience than J.P. Though I think he is the obvious choice for this season, since I just don’t believe Holcomb has the playoffs in his blood, I must admit his fundamentals are lacking, apparently even to me. Maybe it was just an off series. It’s pretty hard to tell I’m ready for football season, huh.

I think I am going to buy a bag of those googly eye stick on things and go into the grocery store at night. Then attach two of them to vegetables and fruits that are like one below the surface. Do you think someone would be freaked out when they pick up the top butternut squash and see the bottom one staring up at them? Maybe grapefruits are funnier.

I think I have mentioned the grocery combination fun game before, where you imagine lists of things that you could buy together at the grocery store that would cause the cashier/other customers to wonder (i.e. KY, a cucumber and adult diapers). I wonder if the same thing could be done at the dollar store, cuz that would be way more economical to actually execute. I tried to come up with something at the DSW yesterday, but no matter which pair of heels you buy, its hard to really get any more kinky than a mild foot fetish when you only have shoes at your disposal. You’d have to be a bit more imaginative at the Dollar Hut, but I’m sure that a pair of discount panties, a traffic cone, and 20 packs of generic minty chewing gum could strike some sort of chord. Even if no one gives you any looks at all, its only three bucks.

Hippo is currently making far more noise upstairs than is reasonable or prudent for a 6ish pound Persian cat, even one as adorable and fun loving as she. Hence I will answer her mews and bring a feather toy or two.

Peace,

MB-K

I Never Found the Words To Say, Youre The One I Think About Each Day, And No Matter Where Love Takes Me To, A Part of Me Will Always Be, With Butt

2006-08-02T23:12:00.000-04:00

Fucking RockStar just jobbidied it hardcore. I mean, I understand that people don’t like Dana like I do, but come on. That is ridiculous. Patrice was boring, Jill is boring every week and Zayra is terrible/hideous/etc. to the nth degree. Seriously, if I didn’t like Dilana and Lukas so much, I would stop watching this show because of how bad this decision is. There has only been one 1.3-ish seasons of RockStar and there have been three (by my unofficial count) wretched elimination decisions. That isn’t explicitly meant to temper my enjoyment of the show, as mentioned only a few entries ago, but simply to question if the quality of the music and entertainment is not matched by the final judges. (By the time I finished typing this entry I had calmed down enough to realize that many of these statements aren’t really true, specifically the not watching RockStar part. Nonetheless, deleting them seems to overly moderate what was indeed a pretty serious anger, so far as I get seriously angry, so it stays.)

Another reality TV note comes from the world of So You Think You Can Dance, a show which I must say always turns out to be far more enjoyable than I would anticipate. Its certainly got some neat stuff, especially when the routines are trick filled and such. I still can’t take dancing seriously, but maybe that’s a character flaw on my part. Maybe it’s just some sort of fucked up family dynamic, since my uncle was a professional ballroom dancer for a while. I can’t think of a reason why his dancing would make me take it less seriously, since I always liked him, despite only seeing him once a year or so, significantly less since I entered high school. I could go off on other side notes regarding the fact that Eric took me to Hooters at the MOA when I was still in elementary school or that he drove a white convertible, liked to play with nunchuks and throwing stars and used some of the weakest old-person trying to sound hip insults even when he was like 20 years old. I think I always had the suspicion that he was not actually cool, despite believing as a 12 year old that he was, but that may be retrospection. Also to be noted, I have seen him I think for a grand total of 30 minutes in the past decade, so my evaluation, contemporary or not, of his relative level of cool should prolly be taken with several grains of very coarse salt. The point of this paragraph was So You Think You Can Dance, however, and my absolute favorite parts of the show are both near the beginning. Favorite part 1: introduction of the host, in this case, the perky blonde brit named Cat Deeley. Her name always makes me think of a brand of toy that hippo would enjoy, you know, playing with her cat dealey. Favorite part 2: Cat Deeley models Ryan Seacrest in introducing us every episode to “our judges.” Technically, she says “your judges,” but I figure you folks can make the transition in speakers pretty easily. Anyway, she says it the exact same way every week and it’s this hilarious but cute pronunciation that I can only describe as a combination of classic British accent, times nasally lisp, times Bill Cosby. That description does nothing, so just watch it and see how accurate it is.

Hippo got up from under Katie’s chair but appears playful, so I am going to divert my attention to her for a while. Her eyes widened (if that’s even possible) at the prospect of a feather on a stick.

Peace,

MB-K

Devil Inside-The Devil Inside-Every Single One of Us the Devil Inside Here Come the World With the Look In its Eye Future Uncertain But Certainly Butt

2006-08-02T00:17:00.000-04:00

Meiches alerted me today to a very interesting article published by some crazy bastards over at Human Events. Just clicking that link probably made you shiver like the devil was gently fingering your butt in preparation for something that you suspect would be less than enjoyable, but as of yet, cannot be certain. Anyway, the website whose home page seems like it is desperately trying to convince people that there seriously are multiple attractive blonde female republicans, has decided to compile a list of what they call the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Century.

In the first place, what the hell nonsense allowed you to group the 19th and 20th centuries together randomly. If you just wanted to make sure that you got Marx and Hitler in the same list I suppose you succeeded, but why the random time selection? Is it like people who just really like to play suited connectors so they just chose the most recent consecutive centuries. I think my next move will be to make a list of the top 10 websites of 2005 and 1895.

Beyond that, who gave you the fucking right to label books as harmful. I hate to sound like NRA propaganda, especially in regard to this group, but I’m pretty sure the books were not the ones inflicting the harm. Thankfully, there is a pretty significant difference between the exchange of intellectual material and freaking firearms, so while Mein Kampf prolly didn’t kill anyone I’m willing to bet that AK-47s have. I agree that there are a lot of stupid/problematic/bigoted ideas that have been written down and published over the years and a lot of things that I have read which I fervently disagree with. The freedom to engage in these debates is fundamentally relevant, not only to democracy, but to the maturation and development of these ideas themselves. I seriously thought that the embracing banned books movement had gotten rid of this shit, but apparently we can pretty clearly identify the dangerous material, all we have to do is survey some conservative PoliSci profs and think tank directors.

The Communist Manifesto at number one is a pretty obvious choice, probably so when arguing with liberal/reasonable/intelligent people, the backers of the list get to trot out the “Communism killed more people than fascism, genocide, etc.” bit. I’m not even going to go into it for the moment, but have you fuckers even read Captial? That book is about 99% a description of capitalist economics and in the area of 1% proscriptive as to the course that economy will take. What exactly is dangerous about explaining commodity fetishism? Any explanation as to why the distinction between use and exchange value contributed to the gulag? I suppose its best explained by their shiningly accurate summary at the end of the blurb: “He could not have predicted 21st Century America: a free, affluent society based on capitalism and representative government that people the world over envy and seek to emulate.” Was that supposed to read “a free society for the affluent?” Do you think Hamas is more involved in the emulation or envy portion of that equation?

I suppose including Keynes on the list legitimates economics as more than just ideology for these folks. Possibly more interesting than the list itself are the items that didn’t quite make it. (That’s not to say that its not interesting to put the Kinsey report on this list). Maybe its just the cynic in me that thinks the ones that didn’t get quite enough votes were left off because they were trying to avoid its reading as a list of the “dangerous minorities” who at some point learned how to stick up for themselves in print. Fanon and de Beauvoir were a bit uppity I guess. I’m really sad that we didn’t get to hear why Darwin and Nader were so dangerous. I suppose it cost the lives of all those converted fundamentalist Christians who went to search for the missing link and the jobs of the Corvair designers.

I know that wasn’t particularly heavy on anecdotes or the word “hella.” Hippo thinks its even funnier that Madness and Civilization made the list, since it’s a pretty accurate description of the normalization process going on in this article. She adds, “purr.”

Peace,

MB-K

I'll Give You Candy, Give You Diamonds, Give You Pills, Give You Anything You Want, Hundred Dollar Butt

2006-07-31T22:19:00.000-04:00

Had a big shopping weekend, we did. The highlights included a washer/dryer, which Katie found on craigslist and trips to two malls in two days. Things we did not buy, but probably should have, included a really really adorable black female pug puppy. We played with her at the pet store for a while on our way to mall number two. Mall number two is not that terrible, considering what I expected at least, and actually had a Dippin Dots franchise. And though the chick being on break prevented me from enjoying the ice cream of the future, it was heartening for future journeys. Katie got the awesome t-shirt below from Victoria’s Secret and if you are at that particular store, I suggest picking one up. That said, I have no idea what it means:

We also got some social time in, hanging with Ken and Anna at their place as well as with Ken for a little while after the somewhat harrowing washer and dryer delivery. I had never picked up a washing machine and though I assumed that they would indeed be heavy, I was not aware that they contained a cinder block of sorts for ballast purposes. We now own appliances, which seems bizarre to me, but also reassuring, assuming that they do in fact work with our set up.

I am making the same grilled pears tonight that I made for the first official dinner hosted by me on Elmwood Terrace, seeing as how Katie did not get to partake. I seriously intend to tweak them with a lighter sauce, but for tonight she gets the full Nutella inspired effect.

On Thursday and Friday the only thing I ate which was not a hamburger or french fries was movie theater popcorn. The clock appears to have stopped at 2:36 last night, I must wind it. I have never seen the episode of CSI which is currently on my TiVo. There was a woodchuck in my backyard this afternoon and it lead me to read the Wikipedia entry on woodchucks. I was unaware that woodchucks were groundhogs, I thought those were distinct rodent creatures. Whistle pig, however, should only refer to bacon wrapped hot dogs.

RockStar: Supernova is off with a bang. There isn’t anyone I love like Jordis Unga, but Lukas, Dilana, and Storm Large are all pretty incredible. I am not fully into the multitude of talent shows that are choking summer primetime, but I understand the networks motivation for doing them. I have seen Master of Champions once or twice, about the same for America’s Got Talent, but have not yet bothered with The One. American Idol is an incredible talent show, but its arguably just as much about the format and personalities. Regis, Hasselhoff, and Brandy don’t have the charisma to pull it off. One other television sidenote, I am so glad that I get the opportunity to watch Dr. Will play the Big Brother game. I still have not decided if I like him or not, but he executes a level of reality game play that I don’t know anyone has ever pulled off this well. I guess there are some comparisons to Rick Hatch, but as smooth as he was in evading his taxes, he doesn’t have that semi-gloss sheen that’s on Chill Town. Janelle and James might be as good in many senses, but they certainly aren’t as flashy.
Hippo is busy trying to take down a moth which she has not yet discovered to be outside of the glass patio door, so she cannot officially add a comment to this entry besides her typically adorable “mew.”

Peace,

MB-K

I Did Your Partner Cuz She's Hot as a Baker, Cuz I'm Naughty By Nature, Not Cuz I Hate Butt

2006-07-29T02:07:00.000-04:00

Just got back from Vermont this evening after picking up Katie yesterday. A couple random things both from the trip and elsewhere:

--we went to Chili’s, cuz Katie wanted something random and chain-like and that was the best option. They had this build your own burger thing going on and they gave you a little pad so you could check each of the toppings that you were interested in. Like, I checked how I want my burger done, my pepper-jack cheese, fried onions, etc. I checked the bacon add-on, of course, but my burger arrived totally sans-bacon. I wasn’t gonna flip about it or anything, but I fucking WROTE IT DOWN FOR YOU. There is no risk of it getting lost in translation, we have a written record of what I ordered direct from me and you still bonered it. I couldn’t get mad at the waitress, cuz it must have been the cook’s fault, unless they have some incredibly ass-stupid policy where the waitperson translates it into some other language for the cook rather than just giving them the note thing. Regardless, it was Chili’s so, yeah.

--our clock chimes every 15 minutes, in very old school grandfather clock style, and has different length chimes based on what percentage of the hour has expired. For some reason, the 45 minute chime makes me sad. Maybe it’s that it goes down on the last note. It wouldn’t sound right if it went up or anything. Maybe it’s the plight of quarter-till or something that I sympathize with.

--the city of Burlington has some great things. The lake is beautiful, some of the best corn chowder I’ve ever enjoyed and all the puppies on Church Street make it easy to ignore the more obnoxious folk. Two things piss me off: 1) air conditioning, seriously. I get that most college dorms aren’t ac compliant yet, but classroom buildings? Restaurants? 2) How does a state with a population only moderately bigger than Wyoming jam every street so it takes multiple iterations to get through a single traffic light from like 3-7 every afternoon? What is it like when school is in session? Sidenote: if you live in Vermont and were driving a purplish-blue Honda CRV down 22 earlier at approximately 15 miles below the speed limit today, I hate you.

--We went to go see a movie and when Katie did not want to sit through three hours of Cap’n Jack Sparrow, we both exclaimed for joy at the thought of watching the marquee advertised John Tucker Must Die! Damn theater apparently just updates their marquee early, cuz of course, that movie didn’t debut until today. Totally weak to update the marquee before the last show of the night has started.

--Instead we saw The Devil Wears Prada. Surprisingly good, on the advice of Katie (who had already seen it) and Pete. I really enjoyed the bits where they put Ms. I-Rubbed-Ice-Cream-on-Mandy-Moore’s-Breasts in her place about fashion and I’m pretty sure I will be referencing it in a number of my capitalism overviews this fall. It would have been a truly great movie if it would have ended about 5 minutes early, the moment Miranda leaves the car to be specific. Still, very good.

--Hippo is very very happy to have her Katie home. She tells me that I am purrtastic to hang out with, but there is no way to replicate Katie’s lap as she checks her email. Now we can go back to the routine of Hippo working with me during the middle of the day and book-ending on the middle of the couch.

Peace,

MB-K

There's a Whole Floor Before Us, Just For You and Me, So Follow Me Lead and We'll One, Two, Three, Pull Butt

2006-07-23T16:05:00.000-04:00

Though I must admit I originally stole it from Hatesexy and that Pete blogged about it before I, but nonetheless, The Pipettes rule. I remain obsessed with this song and cannot figure out why Katie hasn’t become instantly appreciative. I would strongly join in the Teen Tycoon of Rawk in suggesting that you would like to hear them too.

I have noticed, while sitting here, that there is a woodpecker just outside my comfortable well set up living room. I am both amazed by how much like a woodpecker on television this particular woodpecker sounds, and how much I would say that the sound is more accurately bonking then pecking. I wonder if there was some odd prejudice involved in naming them woodpeckers rather than woodbonkers. Is the phrase “woodbonkers bonkin on some wood” more suggestive than “woodpeckers peckin on some wood?” I genuinely have no answer to this question.

HDNet, which Time Warner has only recently successfully achieved for my particular cable box, apparently shows single episodes of random Fox sitcoms that were canceled in a season or so. I am currently enjoying the food court related mischief of Life on a Stick and am really excited about the prospect of A Minute With Stan Hooper later today. Television has been rolling pretty well, even through the summer. The cable system here is just under infinitely better than what we had in Lockport, even though it is still lacking Fox in HD, a tragedy on which I will save my commentary. RockStar is good, but still warming up. There is no one who strikes me like Jordis did, but certainly some rawking to be had. I wish whiny Diane would have bit it over Nokomis, but it was inevitable I suppose.

I was going to start this paragraph by describing what was on my TV at this particular moment, but the phrase “I cannot help but think, as I stretch on my lovely green sectional couch, watching Jason Lee fellate a stuffed falcon…” simply seems more fit for the opening of a chapter in my upcoming fictional work “Woodbonkers of the Parallelogram.”

Katie has been gone for a full week and Hippo has had about enough of that, I believe. She does appreciate getting half the bed to herself if she wants to nap while I am asleep, but in all honesty I think she finds sleeping on Katie altogether more enjoyable. As she was watching the birdies through the screen door yesterday she was explaining to me her theory regarding catnip and Henry Kissinger, but I cannot possibly reiterate it.

Peace,

MB-K

She's a Lady, Whoa Whoa Whoa, She's a Lady, Talkin About That Little Lady, and the Lady is Butt

2006-07-12T22:27:00.000-04:00

Currently in the car on the way to Nebraska. I have listened to far too much music that is either really depressing, really too James Taylory, or really too country. I had prepared for the fact that my musical tastes are the drastic outliers in this situation, but there is about 2% overlap at best, between the shit I can even moderately enjoy and what is being played. I have played a couple games of FIFA and in the looking forward to the Sonic experience was distracted. Now we have the crazy ass drive to nowhere, that is West of Des Moines, which I don’t think becomes interesting again until Denver, at the very least.

Sonic was rawking as per usual, the SuperSonic jalapeno cheeseburger and the coconut cream pie shake especially notable today. Afterwards I just couldn’t handle the Tracy Chapman so I have switched to brief blogging.

Obviously that was about a week ago. We are in Rochester now, set up for the most part, and rocking pretty hard. We have what must be the greatest couch in the history of the universe and as of today, an actual functioning wireless connection. In that vein I extend my apologies to Shankar, whose network we have been slowing down since our arrival.

Just as we are beginning to get back into the routine of TV watching, laptop usage, and rolling with the homies, Katie has to prepare to depart for Vermont. Because of general ineptitude on the part of certain people, she is only going to be gone from Hippo and I for two weeks, which, while sad for her experiences and our finances, certainly carries with it a way more rawking return date of like July 29th. I suppose that’s two weeks that I can get a lot of TV catching up done and get re-crack-a-lackin on the old dissertation (which has been too neglected too long). I also would really like to start writing some less formal pieces to send to e journals and the like, which I don’t have any rationale for besides vita-boosting I suppose.

Our townhouse/apartment is pretty awesome, I must say, despite not being fully set up. We now have a dining room table and chairs, almost all of our stuff on the premises and lighting available for most tasks one would perform at home. There are other things which I will leave it up to Katie to describe, specifically all the textiles we purchased for somewhat ridiculous sums.

We’ve spent two great nights here with our friend/boss Ken and his girlfriend Anna, who recently bought a house on the Genesee River about 10 minutes from here. The house is pretty cool but the backyard is incredible. Literally, ON the river, with a great porch and a nice landing to sit on, fish, or light a campfire. I have a great fondness for campfires from my mid-late college days at my rents place on Cobbler Avenue. There is really no better way to spend an evening outdoors. Two hilarious things about this: 1) Everywhere besides Minnesota, for all practical purposes, does not have mosquitoes. I have never really been a target of the skeeters in the first place, but near a lake around twilight in the summer, even I get sick of it. Katie will get mad saying that I am trivializing her bug bites, but you could walk around a swamp naked covered in pigs’ blood and get bitten less here than you would in a full snow suit in the Boundary Waters. 2) These people down the street from Ken have a pig. I mean like a full big old hawg. There was some debate about its potential pot-belliedness, but I believe that debate is settled. This is the type of pig which is one wrong turn into the driveway away from being slow smoked over mesquite coals.

Hippo has had a great number of adventures recently, but she is far too tired to relay them now. She merely adds a sleepy meow and returns to her rest.

Peace,

MB-K

I Need You, More Than Anyone Darlin, You Know that I have From the Start, So Build Me Up, Buttercup, Don't Break My Butt

2006-06-30T19:12:00.000-04:00

I lied about the possibility of an increasing frequency to the whole posting on the blog thing. I could say that I have been busy, and this is true. I have been cutting cards, assembling my own cards, and generally debate-camping my way to fame and fortune. I recognize that this isn’t the DDI, but I am pretty impressed with the increase in quality that has occurred in most of these kids. We’ve put out some good files and had a hella lot of practice debates, drills, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that a couple of these teams will be elite squads if they decide to stick with it, cuz they are all smart and most of them are wickedly determined. On the final day of the institute, I am somewhat unsure about only the decision to have a tournament with wins and losses, since after two weeks (a long time for a group mostly composed of sophomores and first years), hearing that you lost a debate on an argument you worked to develop for a week seems to be somewhat devastating. I don’t really understand that mentality, but I can imagine that it would not be the best way to spend a Friday in the summer.

Katie and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary this previous Monday. We stayed that night at the Minneapolis Hilton, at least a small step up from 312 Sorin Hall. More important than that, we had dinner at fucking Manny’s. I know that there are those who do not consider Manny’s the best steakhouse/restaurant/place in Minnesota/the world. This is in no way to diss those people or the Silver Butter knife Steak. In my mind, however, there isn’t really anything you can do to get better than this joint. I recognize that in many ways the place is exactly geared to the things I value. The décor is classy but not fussy, dark woods, clean lines, aprons and jackets on the waiters. The place is comfortable, always busy but rarely so jacked that you feel hot or out of place. The menu cart is so awesome, the fact that each of the servers get to do their own bit is brilliant, and that doesn’t even get to the generally impressive hugeness. I have never gotten to enjoy either the double-porter or the $125 Australian lobster tail, but someday they will make the ultimate surf and turf.

I didn’t even mention that we were dining virtually free on a gift from Kari and Karly, which got us each a couple glasses of wine, a very very rare porterhouse for me, a nearly charred (but still delicious) baseball steak for Katie, an order of the world’s best hashed browns, and some legitimately enormous asparagus. If there were downsides to eating at Manny’s (and I’m not so much saying there are) there would be two that are possible: 1) The rest of the world just seems like someone turned the volume down. Food pretty much seems like gruel for the next week, cuz how do you match that up. 2) Its hard to eat dessert. I pretty much eat steak, potatoes, and vegetables until I no longer feel physically capable of doing so. Its usually shortly after that point that your snappy looking wait-person comes around to offer you the enormous brownie sundae, the ricockulously large slab of cheesecake, etc. etc. This is a tough position, because while you are hella certain that you should not follow up a steak as large as what you just ate with a brownie as large as what you see on the next table, you are also hella certain that the brownie on the next table is ex-fucking-actly what you need to follow up the steak with. So you can either overeat a second time in the course of one meal or refuse one of the best desserts you are likely to see for a while. We got out of this dilemma with a delightful surprise, that being Manny’s providing us with complimentary dessert for our anniversary. I guess I had mentioned that it was, in fact, our anniversary when I made the reservation, but it really did surprise me when they did so. I had never had this particular dessert before, but it pwnd Manny’s style: it was a brownie, topped with a thick layer of chocolate mousse, topped with a thick layer of whipped cream, which was then dumped upon by a classic gravy boat full of hot fudge. The crazy thing was that, enormous as it was, it was still small by Manny’s standards. We managed to put the whole thing down, though I like to think I was responsible for about 90% of that. Brownie French silk pie: ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Manny’s and the Minnesota State Fair are pretty much my two favorite places and this meal pretty much put any hierarchy (which would have previously had the fair strongly in the lead) in question. More importantly, of course, was that I got to spend a wonderful 24 hours with Katie. She got me an incredible tapestry like woven thing which features both a bunch of really cool colors and textures, as well as kitty cats. Considering we have like 25 times as much wall space in our new place as we do now, having some things to hang there would be hawt. We got to watch some TV that wasn’t just recorded World Cup games (not that there is anything wrong with that) and enjoy some wedding cake redux, courtesy of Wuollet’s.

We celebrated our wedding anniversary with Hippo the next day, cuz she wanted to say congratulations and all, but we didn’t get to hang out long. She sent me an email yesterday, meowing about how she missed us. She is really ready to go back to New York, but likes having the stairs to race up and down—little does she know….

Peace,

MB-K

You Might Have Heard I Run With a Dangerous Crowd, We Ain't Too Pretty We Ain't Too Proud, Might Be Laughing a Bit Too Loud, That Never Hurt No Butt

2006-06-22T17:20:00.000-04:00

We finally got freaking internet access up in here. I love being home, I love seeing my family and friends, I love working with the kids at this institute, but being away from my TV, away from my cat, away from my DVR, air conditioning, my own schedule etc. is driving me up a wall. I will probably never be as affected by this as Katie and some others are, but I understand somewhat better why they would feel that way.

I would never expect dorm food to be particularly good, but at the moment it has been both not particularly good and entirely geared towards 2 year olds. I assume this is because the other significant group at Hamline at the moment is a gymnastic camp that features mostly people in the 2 year old range. We have had hot dogs on at least two occasions, chicken patties, grilled cheese sandwiches, and sloppy joes. I don’t mind any of these foods, though their sloppy joes were a) not extra sloppy (even though they should know that kids like ‘em sloppy) b) not especially good. They do have a surprisingly good soft drink selection, which kind of blows my mind. I mean, they don’t have any non-cola diet choices, but they have both Coke and Pepsi products, both cherry versions, Mountain Dew and Mello Yellow, Dr Pepper, some lemon and other ades, root beer, and approximately one literal buttload of juices.

I drove to Kinko’s today (because I woke up in a cold sweat last night thinking “SHIT!! Oh yeah, Kinkos.”) and on the way back I passed this truck.

You are reading that 100% correctly. The Eager Beavers of the Box Business. Either someone shares my sense of humor or someone knows very little about euphamisms for vagina. However, if you are in “the box business” (interpreted either way) you have likely heard “box jokes” before. I hope you appreciate that camera phone shot, however blurry it might be, because it almost cost my life to get it, insofar as I was in the process of passing that truck at around 45 mph with cars in front of and behind me when I took it. I think the dude behind me appreciated the necessity of such a picture, since he appropriately backed off until I had captured the moment.

Tom, Katie’s father, got a Motorola Q last week, and I am ricockulously jealous. I mean, this thing is phat. Not only would it have alleviated my internet woes during the first parts of the institute, it would always leave me with something to do and probably destroy my thumb joints within a month. Katie still needs some convincing that a 45 dollar monthly data package is a smart idea in our limited budget, still, I really like it. I would be willing to cut back my clothing, make-up, shoe, and black licorice purposes to literally nothing to balance out my increase. Maybe the terrible office job I anticipate having in the fall will turn out to benefit me because I will have some legitimate justification for having more access to the internet then my home, my office, and every retail business in the country.

I finally got to see Hippo again this morning and she was meowtastic as usual. She was furr-ious at Landon Donavan and the assbag of miscreants known as Team USA Soccer, but purry and such nonetheless. She, as per usual, says meow.

Peace,

MB-K

If You Don't Give My Football Back, I'm Gonna Get My Dad on Butt

2006-06-21T17:46:00.000-04:00

So I totally suck at updating my blog when I am at home. I admit this freely. It should be a bit better during these two weeks, when I will be at the debate institute at Hamline but beyond that, I’m sure I won’t be back to fully regular until we are set up in Rochester. I will take props from Katie and simply go list style, cuz its easier than any sort of coherent thematic organization:

I’m a bit worried about the cast selected for Last Comic Standing. They don’t seem, up front, to be as funny as the previous casts, but I will give that time to work itself out. More importantly, they selected a bunch of people who were TERRIBLE, simply because of their quirks. They also didn’t appear to select even one one-liner/straight comic in the grand Mitch Hedberg-Steven Wright tradition, which makes me personally sad. Its also weird to see Mr. Not Even as Famous as Jay Mohr repeat the exact same intro lines. I get that the Jay Mohr hosted format wasn’t working, but if he is good enough to represent Diet Pepsi in the hard fought negotiations with Jackie Chan, he’s gotta be better than Mr. Sitcom Terrible.

The kids at this debate camp have this crazy game which I can only describe as Shock Roulette. The game has a button and four spots in which people can insert their thumbs. When the button is pressed a sort of countdown timer begins and when it ends one of the people playing gets a small shock. That’s it. End of game. I understand the initial appeal of this game to some people. Its certainly novel and it admittedly captured some of my curiosity. This is the third day of the institute, however, and there is not yet any sign of the popularity of Shock Roulette slowing down. I have not seen any women join in the game yet, but I have seen a number of dudes play it by themselves. By that I mean they put two or more fingers in different slots and press the button, I guess for the curiosity of determining which of your fingers gets shocked. I could go off on the potential that this game is an American teenage male version of the vagina dentata, but I won’t.

I have developed a serious addiction to World Cup Soccer. In most of the games I don’t really have a favorite, though I enjoy rooting for the “3rd World” and generally the underdog. I was a fan of the US team coming in, though their general suckitude has made that less possible. That’s not even to mention that in the best case scenario we get smizacked by Brazil in the round of 16. As a sidenote, when I was trying to quickly get through part of the Spain-Tunisia match yesterday I watched about 20 minutes on fast forward. The way the ball bounces when you fast forward soccer is really quite hilarious. In fact, it made me think pretty specifically of foosball. My new theory is that foosball was created by watching soccer in fast forward. Of course in the end, foosball distorted Mitch Hedberg’s view of soccer, cuz he cannot do a backflip, much less several in a row with several other guys who all look like him.

Air conditioning is awesome. I mean, really really awesome. It keeps the air all cold and stuff. In fact, air conditioning probably makes my top 10 favorite things overall. The one thing I was really not happy about in the idea of psudeo-living in a dorm for almost two weeks was the lack of any adequate air conditioning. Last night, when we had to stay in a supplemental dorm because of electricity problems we ended up in one of the freak dorms which had an air conditioner sitting in the middle of the room with a vent-thing that directed the hot air and chemicals out of the window. I assume its built to be used in windows that are not the proper up-down closing specific width scenario. It is wicked awesome, I almost stole it, and I want one. I suppose I would rather just be in places that didn’t need to have portable air conditioners, but you take what you can get.

I have not seen my adorable Hippo in almost three days now, and it is driving me insane. I can hear her plaintive meows in the morning all the way from Rosemount. I know she understands that our being here is crucial to keeping her rolling in catnip and happily full of kitten chow, but I miss her.

Peace,

MB-K

I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight, It Must Have Been Something You Butt

2006-05-26T17:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry its so long. I’ve been working, moving, driving to Minnesota, arriving here, and doing wedding related shit while seeing people I have not seen in quite a while. Some funny and awesome things.

-Patton Oswalt CDs make a drive from Buffalo, New York to the Toledo area much easier than usual.

-I’m glad Taylor Hicks won American Idol. I still have McFeever, but Taylor was fun and literally kicked her in the balls on the last performance show. He deserved it.

-I can’t believe I moved away from Buffalo a month before the Sabes win the Cup. Ryan Miller is gonna win the Conn Smythe.

-I joined Bally’s in Minnesota for the month I will be in town. I feel like I got involved in some crazy pyramid scheme, but at the moment, it appears to be a free, complicated pyramid scheme. With far too more paperwork than is justified by me wanting to pay them a set fee to use what is essentially a machine that is heavy in varying degrees.

-The two women who were working at Bally’s appeared to hate each other and have some long running feud. They kept sniping at each other over the discussion of where the St Louis Park location was.

-Everything I own is in a box at a U-Haul place in Rochester. Except for my new couch, which is gonna be so awesome I can’t even deal.

-This wedding is gonna pwn. Virtually everyone is in town to party.

There will be more soon. At the moment Hippo has more material possessions accessible to her than I do. She is gloating, but its still hella cute.

Peace,

MB-K

Keep Thinkin It Will Be Alright If I just Get on the Road, If I Run I Can Free My Worried Butt

2006-05-08T23:42:00.000-04:00

This is the funnest thing ever. I mean, ever. The only reason I am not playing with it constantly is because, for some reason—and I cannot explain it, since I can only barely describe it—Katie does not like hearing computers pronounce dirty words. I can’t really think of anything funnier, but admittedly, I have a somewhat unique sense of humor. The best part is that you can download any of the files you create. I really need a cellphone that can just use .wav files as ringtones. Something to research for the fall I suppose.

We went to this BBQ chain joint in Amherst for dinner tonight. Everything was quality, especially since I have gone so long without pulled pork of any sort. The sauce could have used a teense more heat, but that’s neither here nor there. We had an incredible cornbread skillet which was accompanied by a “smashed pecan butter” which would be more accurately described as a “pecan butter frosting.” Also we had the perkiest waitress in recent memory. I thought she was charming, I think Katie wanted to smack her in the face with a corn cob.

Sabres up two games to nothing on the Sens. This city has Sabres-fever, not unrelated to McFeever, and I am gonna be back in Minneapolis by the time they take a run at the Stanley Cup Finals. Weak. Hippo agrees that at the very least we will be in the state of Hockey, USA, and hence with Ryan Miller and the boys in spirit. She’s a big A-fur-ogenov fan.

Peace,

MB-K

But I Don't Care, I Care, I Really Don't Care, Did You See the Drummer's Butt

2006-05-03T21:12:00.000-04:00

I haven’t talked about Idol very much, but I should mention that someone tonight won the award for the most brilliant move in music competition history. I believe their train of thought must have gone something along the lines of: “Well, last week it was a wardrobe malfunction, this week I think we should have McFeever wiggle around the stage on her knees in a fashion that is something between a lap dance and…well some other pelvic thrusting activity you could do on or around your knees.” I think Paris Bennett goes home, which is sad since it’s the first time anyone really exceptional has bitten the dust.

I had to side with Rory tonight when an argument broke out regarding Ashlee and the dark versus blonde hair. I can’t imagine that there is a correlation between the more traditional Rory/Lorelei controversy, the controversy that A.J is so painfully incorrect about. Maybe I’m wrong. I could start

www.doyouthinkrorieishotterthanlorelei
anddoyouthinkdarkhairedashleeishotter
thanblondeashlee.com

then evaluate the results statistically, but fundamentally I think this is just a situation where Lorelei is too old. It happens, she was wrong about the Rory situation last summer. I guess it is evidence against the otherwise true statement that being hotter than someone logically paired with you makes you better at determining which half of a logical pair is hotter than the other half.

If I owned a company that made GPS driving direction thingies for cars, that I would create a feature where you could select “random destination” and it would take you somewhere. I mean, maybe you could do it like “random destination within 50 miles” and you would get a trip to somewhere cool without even knowing what to expect. I mean, you could also have true randomness, where the computer would just randomly tell you when to turn and you would end up either somewhere really cool or somewhere really stupid related only to the statistics of how many places are cool versus how many are totally stupid. But I think the idea of random computer generated road trip would be awesome. You could go even more specific and have the computer choose an awesome restaurant within like 10 miles, which would totally solve the “where the hell are we gonna eat” crisis by deciding for you. I would rock at being the guy to scout out cool places to go and I could work for cheap, provided I got money for gas and Coke Zero.

Jade is obviously a tremendously agonizingly annoying character. She is one of the worst antagonists (or best I suppose, she is good in her badness, chure) in the history of ANTM. She said, tonight, what I believe is the single stupidest thing that any human being has ever said. This is in addition, mind you, to all the Bush-like jobbityings of the English language which they highlighted in the flashback show like two weeks ago. This is a literal quote:

“I will always remember this, shooting with an elephant that reminds me of an ancient dinosaur. Cuz they are in the dinosaur family.”

Hippo sez there is no way I can top that with my own words. So I will simply close.

Peace,

MB-K

Gigantic, Gigantic, Gigantic, Our Big Big Butt

2006-05-01T23:53:00.002-04:00

I went to the post office today and, since the wait was outlandishly long and filled with people who were taking about 5 minutes to complete a 20 second task, I was looking around. I noticed specifically, this poster.

Its a pretty boring ass poster for a pretty boring as subject of course. But the dueling things I could think of were: 1) How weird would it be to be the face of identity theft? Like the guy who the advertising execs at USPS decided would be the most likely to convey the pure evil and danger of identity theft, just by a picture being glued onto the license. 2) Imagine how hilarious it would be for someone to actually make a fake driver’s license with this picture on it. “Well, Mr. Johnson, I can certainly withdraw your life savings from this account, though I must admit I am bit scared that you are going to attempt to murder and eat me.”

We had an insanely busy weekend, from the art museum, to dinner, to seeing Stick It, to Rochester to find apartments, to dinner with folks, to shopping etc. It was hella busy is the point overall, but a lot of positive developments to say the least. The one thing on which there is no positive development to be had is the ongoing couch debate. By ongoing couch debate I mean this split: I think a couch is supposed to be comfortable above everything else, Katie cares about its appearance. I’m not going to degrade Katie’s opinion here, since she doesn’t have the chance to literally defend herself, though obviously I like my own.

I can tell, pretty easily, when looking at a couch, if it will be comfortable or not. I don’t think this is any sort of a super power, though it would be a freaking awesome one if it were, I just have a lot of comfy couch experience and I can parlay it into a pre-sitting judgment pretty effectively. The couches that Katie likes to look at are, 9 times out of 10, not very comfortable. Among the reasons for this is that she has made several of the comfiest features that a couch can possess also function as “ugly” or “aesthetically unacceptable.” There is, for instance, the high backed thing that can support your neck while maintaining an adequate viewing angle towards the television of your choice. After that you’ve got the puffiness, the delightfully pouchy overstuffed feeling that means you sink directly into the fabric, ending up surrounded by soft goodness. This is not even to mention the greatest of couch features: the recliner.

I get that there are some comfortable couches out there which do not recline. I guess there are comfortable chairs that don’t recline too. This, however, is the great part of the reclining sofa: it does not always have to recline. If you want to sit straight up, go right ahead. I guess, if you are entertaining royalty or Boutros Boutros-Ghali stopped by, you might want to do that. After an entire warehouse full of couches, we found two that potentially provided solvency for the permutation. Neither of them was especially aesthetically pleasing and neither was ridiculously comfortable, but they are the starting point. I’m thinking maybe getting the aesthetic couch with a recliner a la carte would do the trick, but I’m not even gonna try to explain how Katie hates those.

Hippo is so exhausted that she has asked me to carry her from her perch at the windowsill to a new perch atop the shelves. While I would normally consider that a bit much, she did help me bake a delicious batch of Snickerdoodles and it is really the epitome of the cat like laziness she is trying to perfect.

Peace,

MB-K

You're a Honey Child, To a Swarm of Bees, Gonna Blow Right Through You, Like a Breeze, Give Me One Last Dance, We'll Slide Down the Surface of Butt

2006-04-26T23:13:00.000-04:00

Tyra’s hair on ANTM tonight is ricockulous. I mean, you are in Thailand, not the People’s Republic of Horrible Flowers Sticking Out of Your Hair at Random Angles Along the Messed Up Braid Thing That Outlines Your Forehead. No real justification for that one.

Steven Colbert had this total wad on last night to talk about atheism. I could say, quite rightly, that this dude literally used the worst possible set of arguments to prove an entirely legitimate point or that he completely misunderstood the point of each of the issues he was talking about, but it might just sound like I am explaining how much smarter than I am than this total tool. And regardless of the obvious fact that I am way smarter than this tool, that would not be nearly as clear an explanation as this. The dude was so bad that Steven Colbert stopped just pretending to argue with the dude and actually argued with him. He sucked and anyone who buys his book should be legally barred from exchanging money for goods and services in the future. They can enter rehab or something so they can learn to be useful and productive members of capitalist society, evaluating whether or not a product is something that you should pay for, or reluctantly use only in desperation to make a papier-mâché club to beat yourself about the face and neck with.

If you were like a snail or a hermit crab and you know you were gonna switch shells soon, would it be like a really traumatic experience. Would you be thinking like “I know that in the end I will at least be able to find a shell around here somewhere that will at least be tolerable for a little while” but at the same time panicking every time you found a perfect shell that couldn’t wait until you were ready to occupy it. Maybe that’s not applicable.

Dunkin Donuts announced, on one of their commercials that was on my sports radio station today, that they were starting an “aggressive campaign” in the Buffalo area. It felt like they were firing a radio-shot over Tim Horton’s head. I can say for certain that it was the most mean spirited negative radio campaign I have ever heard regarding donuts. If I were not leaving this town in like a month, I would totally be in on Dunkin Donuts side. Plus they don’t screw around with sandwiches and stuff, at least not as much, pretending to be all normal restaurant with a donut instead of fries or something. I’m gonna remain Switzerland for the moment though.

Hippo has been trying to eat Katie’s flowers all day, and its really cute, cuz when you say “Hey Hippo, stop eating those flowers.” She either looks at you in her adorably grumpy fashion that clearly sez “Dude, chill, I’m just gonna take a nibble.” Or alternately, she looks back at you over her shoulder and pushes her nose against the flower and takes a little sniff in that “pay no attention to the Persian kitten sitting near the flowers” mode.

Peace,

MB-K

Pause, Take a Breath Go For Yours, On My Command Now Hit the Dance Floor, Gonna Make Ya Sweat till Ya Butt

2006-04-23T21:24:00.000-04:00

We did some apartment shopping in Rochester today, which generally went pretty well. I mean, I am really sort of manic about the whole situation, since all the transitional aspects of money, location, happiness, Katie and Hippo comfort, jobs, dissertation, long term failure etc, but still it was ok. We saw a pretty cool townhouse which was a little too expensive and prolly too far away, a flat in a kinda crappy old house, and a cool apartment which was a little small but had a new hard wood floor, two bedrooms, and the right price tag. There is still some looking to do and I am incredibly excited about one potential place. The points of interest:

--the woman who showed us the first townhouse wanted to point something out specifically to Katie. She said, and I quote, “Katie, YOU may be interested to know there is a washer-dryer in the powder room.” I laughed openly.

--if you generally conceive of renters as inconveniences rather than clients or people, why do you buy a house for the purpose of renting it out? I mean, if you were a 1950s science fiction novel and you had to rent a room in your house, possibly unknowingly to an alien in disguise, I could get it. But if you buy a house that you don’t live in for the purpose of renting it, don’t be a total wad about it.

--I don’t really get the idea of “no pets” but I understand that they can cause damage, so whatever, exclude them if you want to exclude them. What makes even less sense, at least as a legitimate concept, is pet rent. You need to charge 20 extra dollars cuz Hippo might rip your walls to shreds? You should be more worried that she’s gonna hold you up at claw-point to make some of that pet rent back—Hippo is not excited about getting a job.

--Rochester has way way too many apartments that are not listed anywhere online. By “not listed anywhere” I mean not even in the newspaper. Is there enough random-physical-apartment-searching in the city to keep the market alive?

--why no one wants to rent me their totally awesome house for like 200 a month 2 blocks away from the university is beyond me. It’s a win win situation.

--how much would it rock to have a patio? Barbecues are awesome.

I know I don’t have the patriotic drive or the 9/11 romanticism involved in enjoying this movie, but wtf is the deal with United 93? Not only does it have all the surprise ending magic of films like Titanic or Gettysburg, but there is no way to honor the passengers of this flight like having them portrayed by the Hollywood mega-stars who made Curiosity, Tree Shade, and Size Matters. I think the title is a poor choice when you can quickly and easily think of a cooler movie that would be described with the same title. In this instance, something about A.J.’s epic rise to power at United Airlines, circa 1993.

Hippo is excited cuz Sam Seaborne has returned to The West Wing, it’s every persian’s dream come true.

Peace,

MB-K

When I Feel Heavy Metal (Woo Hoo),And I'm Pins and I'm Needles (Woo Hoo), Well I Lie and I'm Easy, All of the Time, But I'm Never Sure Why I Need Butt

2006-04-20T16:20:00.000-04:00

I had to go to the stupid dentist today. I refuse to get off on a crazy "I hate the dentist" rant, though believe me I have plenty of negative things to say about the psuedo-medical industry. I am not even gonna complain about my jaw jurting or the fact that my dentist is the dentist verion of Wanda Sykes if she was really severe and serious and never ever funny. Those qualities are actually as bad for a dentist as they are for a Wanda Sykes impersonator, believe it or not.

What I am going to talk about is this: hot dental workers. The dental hygenist-type woman who did the cleaning portion of my evil dentist visit was pretty cute and fairly young (I mean, there is Katie up at the top, followed by all the other women I actually know, so she wasn't cute on the scale of seriously hawt women, but insofar as ordinary folk go). Maybe this is only in comparison, cuz every dental hygenist I have ever had has been approximately middle aged and nothing to write home about, in terms of attractiveness.

The contrast that came to my mind, for some reason, as I was having my stupid teeth cleaned, was to getting one's hair cut. I have no proof of this fact, but I am willing to say that for all or nearly all heterosexual men, when you show up at the haircutting place, you are hoping to get a cute woman to cut your hair. Thats not to say its a condition of getting your hair cut, or that non-cute people don't cut hair as well, or even that it really matters in any way, but simply that: all things considered, if it had no negative effects at all, you would prefer the cute girl. If this gets anyone mad at their respective partners, I'm sure that s/he is the exception, one of those people who does not like attractive people running their hands through their hair for 20 minutes.

Everything that is good about having an attractive person cut your hair is absent in dental work. Haircutting feels good, dentistry hurts. Hair is an attractive part of one's body, the wide open mouth is not. You leave a haircutting place looking better than when you arrive, you leave the dentist drooling with a numb face. The similarities just become painful, you're working in the same proximity in both cases, there is the weird adjustable chair thing, the sterile individual work stations and the pokey metal instruments. Anyway, I am trying to find a way to explain all this without coming down to something that makes me seem even more shallow than I actually am. So I will stop.

To finish I will describe the plated dessert that Katie and I shared at Butterwoods Dessert Restaurant last night: the Chocolate Trio. On the fringes were two candied orange slices, one was topped with a tangerine sorbet (meh, fruit, I'm sure it was good, but there was zero chocolate to be found and tangerine is like sour orange times butt) the other had a chocolate orange ice cream, which clearly the way fruit was supposed to be used in this situation, it was good. There was a chocolate beignet, which made it sound to me like the batter would be chocolate, but in fact it was regular beignet batter with chocolate inside, yum. There was a flourless chocolate torte which was delightful, as you might expect from the words flourless chocolate torte. Katie will not agree with this in her account, but the best part of the whole thing was the chocolate bread pudding. Wow, it was awesome, perfect density and an explosive chocolatosity. I could not discern at all what it was really made out of, bread or dry cake or what, but it pwnd. Topped with a creme fraiche ice cream, it was among the best individual dessert items I have ever experienced. It was a great great dessert, the exact thing I was in the mood for when I showed up there.

Alright, Hippo says I need to refill her catnip toy so she can spend her evening in style. That seems legit to me.

Peace,

MB-K

A Modern Day Warrior, Mean Mean Stride, Today's Tom Sawyer, Mean Mean Butt

2006-04-17T23:23:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter to everyone. It was a great weekend in this household, gourmet and everyday chocolates were abound, as was red meat in all its luxurious forms. I had a Double Quarter Pounder on my way home from mass, we had summer sausage as a mid-afternoon snack, and a pretty tasty porterhouse for dinner. That was accompanied by a green bean salad with pearl onions and bacon, cheese-scalloped potatoes, and Katie’s delightful homemade rolls. We maintained the whole springy motif during dessert time, when Katie whipped up one of the most delightful fruit-ilicious cakes I have ever had.

I won’t go on in too much detail regarding how well the white cake, strawberry, whipped cream combo works, nor will I fully explain exactly how much of this cake I ate during last night’s foodstravaganza. What I will explain to you is the oddness of this fact: I realized, while eating this cake of dreams, that it reminded me of a specific delight. That delight: The Twinkie.

For some reason Katie took this as an insult, I suppose it has more than a little to do with the fact that she was viciously deprived of Twinkies as a child and hence cannot appreciate their gloriousness. Mitch Hedberg accurately observed that “Fettuccine alfredo is like macaroni and cheese for adults.” That doesn’t mean it is not of high quality, simply that it is a more complicated and “gourmet” version of the same basic structure: in this case, noodles and cheese sauce. Switch out the yellow processed American-ness of the cheese in the Kraft Mac and Chee and substitute some delicate parmesan. In this case you take the gooey yellow spongeyness and switch in an almost biscuit-like sweet density, switch in some actual whipped cream, and throw some fruit on the bastard. Still, a vanilla flavored cake with a generous amount of whipped topping: you get the gist.

I wonder two things about this situation: 1) Is there something about yellowness specifically that is always removed when “gourmet-izing” a classic. Would classy Cheetos have to be made with blue corn or something? 2) Why would you so thoroughly enjoy one version and not another? I mean, I guess there are circumstances where the specific changes may throw something off enough. If you are allergic to or just hate the additions, sure. If you added blueberries to my chocolate chocolate muffin from SuperMom’s I wouldn’t even bother to wash it down with SuperRich Choco-milk, but if you made it with imported Dutch chocolate and frosted it with a rich ganache, I would be in.

You know who does not get anywhere near enough props: Jim Varney. That guy was a talent and a hardcore one too. I was thinking about him the other day when I was asking myself a hypothetical “Who Would You Rather Bwn?” question: Going for an extended period of time without any video entertainment at all or watching only the film version of The Beverly Hillbillies on repeat at least 4 times a day? I realized that probably wasn’t a very hard one, but wondered if it would be a better question if you limited your video entertainment to only Jim Varney movies. Then I remembered: Ernest movies rule. I saw Ernest Goes to Camp at least 100 times. Ernest Saves Christmas was another gem. I loved Ernest Goes to Jail all except for the electric chair thing, since I had a hard time laughing at capital punishment, even at 12 odd years old. I remember when Ernest died and I was sad. But I didn’t remember the sad times, the Beverley Hillbillies for instance, or Slam Dunk Ernest. I remembered Ernest, playing an old woman, in a fisheye lens.
Hippo is too young to have seen Jim Varney in his prime, but I will have to sit her down and take a look at the early Ernest that so influenced our lives. A good dose of catnip and it will be as funny to my Persian friend as it was at so many elementary school sleepovers.

Peace,

MB-K

Run To The Hills, Run For Your Butt

2006-04-12T20:05:00.000-04:00

I live in the state of New York and have for approaching 4 years now. I have never been to New York City. When I mention this fact around people in this area they are routinely amazed. Before I even get into the legitimacy/illegitimacy questions in this arena, let me just say that even people generally from the Northeast, not even NYC residents, are ridiculously arrogant about visiting NYC, to an extent that no one in any other area has ever been in my opinion.

First, let’s note that New York is about 400 miles from Buffalo. That’s the outskirts of NYC by the way, not Times Square. You gotta figure that to be at least 7 hours, if you make amazing time, more likely its 9 to really get into the city. That doesn’t make me particularly close, just because I’m in the arbitrary boundaries of the state of New York doesn’t make visiting the city any more likely. We’re far closer to Philly and Pittsburgh, and no one is surprised that we haven’t made those journeys. Montreal is prolly right in the same range and infinitely more likely to get my, admittedly limited, tourist dollars. Are you in Minneapolis? Have you been to Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Iowa City, Kansas City, Omaha, Lincoln, and St. Louis? All within about that same distance and I really can’t imagine being harassed if I hadn’t been to the University of Nebraska campus.

My guess is that the answer to this would be: yeah, but those places aren’t New York. Well, my guess is that some of them are way better places to spend one’s time than New York. The thing that solves back for all these reasons, of course, is money. If you are rich like a bastard, I’m sure New York is awesome. If you are rich like a bastard my guess is that anywhere is awesome. In fact, places that are awesome when you are not rich are probably way more awesome when you are rich, versus places like New York, which would swallow llamas if you aren’t wealthy.

What’s so awesome about New York? The food? Yeah, I bet the food is really good. Notably though, every decent size city has great food. Even Buffalo and Rochester have good food. I suppose there is some stuff you can only get in NYC, but that stuff tends to be outlandishly expensive. Again, if you’re rich, cool. I’m not.

The people? This is a disad btw, not a good thing. I don’t like throngs, for the most part. I like a spattering of people well dispersed over a large area. I don’t like it when the mall is crowded. One of the few good things about watching Twins games at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome is that you never feel packed in. Don’t get me wrong, I go to crowded places and it pretty much never bothers me. Sometimes it’s even productive, Lambeau Field comes to mind. But for your everyday going to work--getting milk--coming home routine, crowds are annoying, end of story. I’m sure the people are all very cool and everything, but I’m not real worried about finding cool people. I only need like 20 friends, who cares if there are a million or 12 million left over.

I realize that the things I have the best arguments for are actually reasons not to live in New York City. In fact, I have the argument “living in New York City good” pretty much destroyed. I’m sure there are plenty of cool things about visiting, lots of stuff to see, at least once, and I’m sure I will do that at some point. But to do it well takes cash. I haven’t been to NYC yet cuz I can’t imagine I will be able to handle it many times, and when I get there I want to do it right.

I don’t want to be in a city where I can’t drive around reasonably, where everything costs three times as much as it should, and I have to fight with a billion residents and another billion tourists just to get a hot dog.

I think I got off on this question, btw, because one of the blogs I read mentioned that on her most recent visit, she was amazed by the literal bags of garbage along the streets. I’m not a clean freak, but that admittedly sounds annoying and nasty. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but this makes two Minnesota bloggers who have mentioned this fact in the past 6 months or so.

Hippo sez that all the negativity on this blog sux. She is always right.

Peace,

MB-K

You're Always Asking What It's All About But Don't Listen to My Replies, You Say To Me I Don't Talk Enough, But When I do I'm a Butt

2006-04-11T22:51:00.000-04:00

Tonight was Queen on Idol. It’s pretty hard to sing Freddy Mercury, even the epic and legendary Jordis Unga bombed it. There were a couple really poor attempts to do Queen songs, including Ace—who was disgusting—and Kelly Pickler—who looked exactly like a less attractive Ashlee as a blonde while pumping out a hideous country-muzak (Katie says Branson-like, those may be the same) version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Wayne and Garth called during the performance, they want their schwing back.’

I should note that the only reason Ace got the specific link I included above is because ruppdogg’s xanga is the only result that comes up when you google “ace young is a tool.” If anyone wants to ensure that my blog surpasses ruppdogg’s xanga as the number one result for googling “ace young is a tool” I would appreciate it. Though, at the same time…

What if it ignited some sort of epic battle between me and ruppdog. If I were ruppdogg and someone started a war with me regarding my dominance of the “ace young is a tool” google search market I would do two things:

I would strike against reut dawg, who must be the Southern TC Burbs equivalent of ruppdogg, sort of like Bizzaro Jerry. Watch your back reuter, cuz this d00d plays SOCCER in INDIANA. Its essentially like knowing what is gonna take you down. It’s a given, its like hearing “I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart.” It even sounds the same “He plays Soccer in Indiana.”

I would buy the domain name http://www.aceyoungisatool.com/ and buy a week’s worth of ads on Rocketboom. Then, when Ace Young was eventually booted from Idol, I would change the website so that it taunted the person who tried to challenge my “ace young is a tool” supremacy. I figure it would cost me about 100,000 dollars to get to the level I am thinking of, but it would be so worth it. Like “peek-a-poms.” Sorry, bout that picture. All the photos of peekapoms on the internet suck. This is especially ridiculous cuz peekapoms are cute. We saw one in Dallas named Daisy. Adorable. We whipped a u-turn in the Expedition just to say hello to it.

So let me just, in advance, offer a truce to ruppdogg, please ruppdogg, don’t hurt ‘em. Do it for reut dawg, cuz no one wants to see him hurt. Do it for the peekapoms.

I made fajitas tonight. I did not make coconut ice cream and sticky rice. One of those decisions was brilliant, the other sub-par. They are not like US-China-Russian relations, all zero-sum and shit.

Hippo has had an incredible combination of dashing spastic kittenish energy and adorable napping poses today. She crashed after Taylor Hicks’ high flying performance of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” It was, in fact, EMF style unbelievameow.

Peace,

MB-K

No One Else Can Feel it For You, Only You Can Let it In, No One Else, No One Else, Can Speak the Words on Your Butt

2006-04-10T19:05:00.000-04:00

Back from CEDA Nationals and the NDT. We debated well at one, not as well as we would like at the other, I still consider both tournaments a success. Ate pretty well at both of them, especially considering that it is still Lent and I was not able to enjoy the best foods of either location (Chicago: Vienna Beef hot dogs, Dallas: barbecue, Supersonic Jalapeno Cheeseburgers, Both: Steak). Drank a good amount of whiskey both weekends, saw and hung with some friends. Ended the year on a very high note overall.

I always have this ridiculous over-optimism that follows the form “When X is finally done, Y will be better.” This is not a surprising form to have, its prolly pretty close to the definition of neuroris in fact (especially if you consider what Zizek used to say about the revolition (rough paraphrase to follow) for the neurotic it is never time for the revolution, for the hysteric it is always time (or too late). That’s prolly the most emo thing I’ve ever put on this blog, I don’t think its starting a trend.

I am seriously going to attempt to blog on a regular basis, maybe with just something interesting that I come up with. Today, for instance, I joined a gym here in Lockport. More specifically, I joined the Lockport Athletic and Fitness Club. I have not really worked out at all since I was in high school and at that point it was still really just for the purpose of football. I am curious about how exactly this will work, but I don’t have anything else to report until I have at least been there once.

The thing that I don’t get preliminarily is the protein shake thing. When I was in high school the protein thing hadn’t really caught on, though a bunch of us used a significant amount of creatine, significant for amateur high school athletes at least. Besides that I think that the whole supplement business and industry is taking some pretty ruthless advantage of people who are right on the border of people who are too stupid to live, but that may be simply rude of me. The front counter of this athletic facility serves as the front desk and protein smoothie stand.

There seem to be, according to the d00d who showed me around this morning, three primary varieties of protein shake: weight loss, weight gain, and muscle gain. I accept that these prolly encapsulate the three primary goals of the individuals who work out there. I even accept that all three may be accessible through some form of shake. What I don’t get is the focus in all these things, on protein. If we agree with the principles of the Atkins style shit, I can understand why eating all/virtually all etc. protein would help. Maybe if this was even eaten in lieu of a meal and hence replaced your Bacon McGriddle with a banana protein thing it would make sense. None of those things seem to be the case here, so I don’t understand how, regardless of how you process it, protein can be a weight gaining, muscle gaining, and weight losing agent.

I read back over this and think “wow, you have managed to debunk something that was never bunked in the first place.” The only thing more ridiculous than protein shakes is probably the lyrics to the “Natural Chicken” song for Arby’s that they did on last week’s The Apprentice. Hippo has covered her adorable head with her adorable paws in protest.

Peace,

MB-K

Such a Sexy Sexy Pretty Little Thing, Fierce Nipple Pierce You Got Me Sprung With Your Tongue Butt

2006-03-22T19:57:00.000-05:00

Spent an hour today sitting in my car with Hippo and Katie in the parking lot of the apartment. Sure, you are saying, you just wanted to listen to the radio or something. Nope. Wasn’t even enjoying the spring air that was in the area of 30 degrees this afternoon. We were outside because some total douche decided to attempt to burn our house down. Not kidding. Somebody lit a fire in our laundry room. Thank god they sucked at it and that we were home to get safely to the car before anything but a plastic-y burning smell. We had a fire truck, 3-4 supplementary fire vehicles and two cop cars in the parking lot, in addition to the 20 or so people smoking outside the building. Two guys, who you normally would not have thought to be upright citizens taking the public good into their own hands to assist the forces of law, followed some d00d who ran from the building and took some pictures of him. Good job by those guys. The cops will hopefully track him down so I don’t spend every weekend that I am out of town worried about the well being of the apartment. Anyway, that was what I did with the end of my workday.

Back to the weekend: Saturday was free for me most of the afternoon, but Katie spent all her time getting her makeup and hair done all pretty style. She, and all the other ladies involved, looked very very nice, which I know since I drove a couple over to Forepaugh’s for pictures. Afterwards I went back to watch the minute amount of basketball that this wedding/job interview/plane flight allowed me to watch and get ready for the festivities. The wedding was nice, small, and tasty (if I had to use three adjectives to describe it…which I do). I hadn’t been in the restaurant for years (though, as I may have mentioned, I went to prom there) but since it hasn’t changed much since the early 1900s, its no surprise that it was fundamentally the same since mid 1998. The service was well written and performed, the appetizers uber-nummy (among my favorite new adjectives), and dinner was great. I didn’t get to eat the best thing on the menu, seeing as the wedding was smack dab in the middle of the Lenten no-red meat season, but thankfully I have had it before. Cake, which I was initially suspicious of given the word “raspberry” in its description, turned out to be fabulous. It was more of a pinkish butter cream inside with white butter cream outside. Yum. This is not even to mention the good times and good fun. Got to see Pete and Meg, talk to Dave and Amy. Natalie and Matt both looked great, seemed to have fun, and had nice things to say. Katie gave a quality toast as well, I believe the only one that did not mention either someone falling off a bike or drinking to excess.

We leave for the NDT tomorrow, so maybe I will cut some cards or something rather than just blog. Hippo sez I should scratch both card cutting and blogging and instead concentrate on waving feathers, bubbles, or ribbons in various intriguing ways. Persians always win, I guess.

Peace,

MB-K

I Remember All My Life, Raining Down as Cold as Butt

2006-03-21T23:44:00.000-05:00

I really only get the legitimate chance to blog when I’m watching Idol these days. At least that’s my excuse, given as I was legitimately sick last week when doing so. Doesn’t explain it away I suppose, but it’s a reason enough to not have updated in many days. Katie left on a flight that was delayed by the extraordinarily rapidly declining quality of service on Northwest Airlines. By delayed I mean she got bumped to a U.S. Airways flight because the Northwest one was cancelled due to a lack of hours for the crew. That is freaking insane, notably, that you are just not doing an entire day of flights cuz your management is so poor that you cannot pay even a skeleton crew to get the bags up. It doesn’t get much better when you are dismissed by their gate agents and left hungry or poor (since the freaking “Fruit and Nut” snack costs a dollar, seriously, I know we could potentially say this about anything, but the dude(tte)s at the top can’t afford a couple bucks a year to get me the 2 cents per package pretzels). It’s just sad to see an airline I associate so strongly with Minnesota business and have so many friends/family members employed with, take such a nosedive. NWA makes Delta look like Eos.

Between that point and my own departure Thursday morning, I got really sick, rested, wrote 5-6 pages, watched the season premiere of The Sopranos, caught up on all my non-reality TV, prepared a lesson plan for a job interview, and got at least somewhat better again. Renee came to stay with Hippo for the weekend, so at least she can pretend there is a streak of continuity in her family’s travel schedule. I, meanwhile, arrived to the first real snow I have seen on the ground all year and was awaited by Katie, who herself had spent 35 odd minutes in the “return to terminal” driveway.

I watched shockingly little basketball this weekend, which was painful considering my usual track record with regard to opening weekends of the NCAA tournament. I didn’t lose any of my final four picks in the first round, but it doesn’t mean very much to me since I saw at best 12-14 games all weekend. Thursday was running around doing Katie related stuff for the most part, including shopping for a ridiculous concoction of items at the grocery store, and setting up for a bridal shower thing I was not technically involved in.

Spent that night chilling with a good part of the old crew, though I had to get up early for a job interview. Did that thing, nailed it, if I do say so myself (more later if it ever pans out) and went to pick Tom up at the Humphrey Terminal of the MSP International Airport.

Some context: the Humphrey Terminal is like the bastard stepchild to the Lindbergh Terminal. I had not been there in years; it was essentially the storehouse for ridiculous little airlines which had like 2 flights a day. I have picked people up there when they fly in on the regional thingies like Midwest Express and I flew out of there when I went on the cruise with my fam. It used to look far more like a bus terminal than an airport, there was one baggage claim, maybe two, the parking lot was just a big fenced in area past the building, and I think the snack bar was on par with what you might find at a Rosemount JV Hockey game, minus the SuperRopes. It is now, essentially, a miniature version of the Lindbergh Terminal, with enormously oversized parking structure and, without question, the absolute worst “Return to Terminal” system in history. If you exit the pick up area, which you freaking have to of course, cuz the damn airport cops force you (seriously, airport cops are arguably now the worst abusers of their miniscule “move it along” authority that exist, even the robocops in my high school exaggerated their power to a smaller degree than these pricks. What, exactly, is the need to make me drive around the building? If I seriously wanted to do something negative to the airport, how long do you think I would need to do it. “I have this device here, it does something very dangerous, but it needs to be parked against the curb for 53 seconds to activate…” I understand that if you let people freaking park there at 5 on a Friday it becomes unusable, but when there are giant 40 foot gaps of space between the 4-5 cars that are waiting to pick people up at 9:30 pm on a lazy Sunday night, do you have to give me this Federal Aviation Guidelines bullshit), in that situation you have to cross literally 3 stoplights, including at least one that seems to serve approximately 2 cars per decade. That’s not even to mention that each of your 3 merges is from the most awkward angle possible and you have to go over the light rail track. It takes 10 minutes in all seriousness. You would be better off parking at Ikea.

We had dinner with my dad and it was prolly the best dinner he has ever cooked. It was St. Patrick’s Day, after all, and if the Irish can’t belt out some corned beef and cabbage what can they do. The cabbage mixture had potatoes, onions, cabbage, and bacon, all braised to perfection. That’s actually a really simple thing to mess up, cuz overcooked cabbage will sulfur up your house as hard as the day is long. The being out and about portion of our day ended with a stop at the rehearsal party, where Katie got some hella glam gifts and good times were shared by all. I, for my part, most enjoyed playing with the kitties which wandered in triplicate throughout the festivities. Just when one cat was sick of your shtick, you could count on another one to wander by who might think that a stick tapped against the window is the awesomest thing ever. It’s a hard opinion to dispute, when you really get down to it. Three hella cute cats would just be too much for me, I wouldn’t know who to meow at or when to do it. For one evening though it’s the perfect amount.

I will pick up at Saturday morning when I return, with all luck, sometime before this weekend’s NDT. In the meantime Hippo insists that I spend more time tapping sticks against windows for her than I do discussing doing so for hypothetical cats.

Peace,

MB-K

Its Inevitable, Its a Fact That We're Gonna Get Down To It, So Tell Me, Why Can't I Breathe, Whenever I Think About Butt

2006-03-12T15:19:00.000-05:00

We went to the Men’s Warehouse yesterday to buy a suit. Suits are expensive, though admittedly, they are also pretty cool. I don’t have any intention of going all Barney on the bit and wearing suits everywhere I go, but I suppose it is useful to have around, since I believe I will have two opportunities to wear it just this weekend.

I feel, in at least a couple respects, free as a parrot. That is, its not like I don’t have things to do, I’m still on a perch in somebody’s house, but at least I’ve got the freedom to fly, or just squawk for crackers or peanuts or something. This analogy sucks. Point is, its Spring Break, I have taken the period until we return from Spring Break off of debate work, and we are returning to Minnesota this weekend. I still have writing to do, papers to grade, and a job interview this upcoming Friday. Nonetheless, just not having to go into class on Tuesday and Thursday adds a couple hours sleep and a couple hours work time to my week. Katie has like 5 days in the TC but I will only be in town for 3. I’m a little worried that I won’t have the chance to see everyone in my family, much less all my friends, but I think the schedule is falling into place. It kills me that I won’t always have the time to accommodate the schedule of the first rounds of the tournament, but I guess I will get by. My flight should arrive at MSP before the games begin, so I will get most of Thursday’s action and a large part of the later Friday schedule.

I have been caught up in the past couple of days in what I would like to call a “Wikipedia hole.” Apparently some wad named Jcroker beat me to the use of the term, but I think I lost 10 minutes in the middle of a sentence on Friday progressing from OK Soda, to Surge, to urban legends, to urban legends about sharks, to an article about sharks. Between YouTube and Wikipedia, my non-blog reading leisure time is pretty well full up.
Anyway, I went to my Wiki friend this afternoon in an attempt to explain a reference on Numb3rs to the “P Versus NP” problem. I had heard of it before, at least I thought I had, but my guess is that it was simply based on prior references to the same thing on the show. Still, I think that crazy math stuff makes for good reading, so I did so. Another thing I could put on the list of things I could potentially do if I were ridiculously rich and bored is learn some serious math, cuz even though it was back in high school I was hella good at the mathematicos. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t solve one of the Millennium Problems, but its something to do. Interesting article about this problem as embodied in Minesweeper and an explanation that made no sense to me whatsoever about “simply connected bodies.” Thank God that someone could finally explain why an apple was different from a doughnut.

My guess is I’ve mentioned the fact that I don’t get the whole regional differences in Girl Scout cookie naming. Nonetheless, even if you called them Crappidy-Crappidos I would love Samoas more than life itself. I mean, I think Samoa is objectively a better name than Caramel deLites, especially with that horrible capitalization work. We picked up a box yesterday at the mall, so I will no longer be reliant on debate tournaments and other people’s rents for my fix. At least for a couple days.

Hippo does not understand what the big deal is about the cookies or P vs. NP, insofar as neither one is likely to result in her getting a dish of kitty chow any faster. She suggests instead that we focus on the problem of developing an algorithm which predicts how much tuna she wants and when she wants it. A Meow-lennium Problem perhaps?

Peace,

MB-K

A Dime's A Nickel and a Nickel's None, I Throw Myself Into the Sunday Butt

2006-03-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

We are finally catching up, in all the respects which one can catch up. We are regaining some space on the DVR, we are progressing towards cooking and eating real food again, and we have gotten some rest and back to work. We were so busy over this last weekend, winning the JV national tournament and judging 10 debates in 56 hours or so. The tournament was in West Virginia, the drive down there kinda sucked, it went a little too late on Friday night, but I got a couple debates off on Saturday at least. I also won the Butt Award, which is so awesome I cannot even convey it. Its not that I particularly care about awards, but more so that I just really want an excuse to put butt on my resume. We had some really strong performances and we had some tough weekends as well, but a good performance overall that jacked us up to the top 5 in CEDA and NDT rankings. Too many stairs on the Mountaineer campus and I didn’t get to meet Pittsnogle, but I did have dinner at Qdoba. I believe it was the first time I have ever eaten at Qdoba sober (feel free to read that as “at Qdoba, soba” if it makes you happy) since most of my experiences were at the State Street branch in Madison.

On the way to West Virginia we got off the highway in the early part of Pennsylvania and turned in the direction which, or so the sign informed us at least, contained a McDonald’s, Wendys, Burger King, etc. I didn’t just guess this, it was on the freaking official highway sign of food available off that exit. It took us at least 5 minutes to get to that Burger King and I was pissed. There needs to some sort of regulation as to what counts as close enough to the highway to be listed on the exit sign. I’m sure that its just whoever is willing to cough up the highway sponsorship money, but I felt deceived. If you are ever driving through Edinboro, PA, I do not suggest trying to find the Burger King, unless you are trying to grab a late night bite after a long evening at Nick’s Place or are staying at the Season’s Inn.

One of the girls on ANTM was from Buffalo and graduated from the University of Rochester. I say this because they showed a picture of her from graduation with the sign from Bausch and Lomb hall obviously in the background. She didn’t make the cut of course, but it was a good kick off for this season. No one from Minnesota though, so I’m not sure who my favorite is yet. Maybe one of them will be gay or become Shanthrax/Norelle-ish after the makeover, cuz that would be hawt. Janice Dickinson was awesome tonight, the show is just not as good without her every week. Still, tonight was a great day for reality TV, cuz the d00ds performed an especially good batch of tunes on Idol. I keep going back and forth as to whether I like Taylor Hicks or Chris Daughtry better. I’m all about Mandisa as far as the ladies go, though Katharine McPhee(ver) isn’t far behind. I think, unfortunately, that Mandisa is prolly too big to get even as far as Kimberly Locke did, though the same could be said of Taylor’s age. I hope I’m wrong about what people will or will not vote for. With the exception of Reuben Studdard no one of any size has really gone anywhere on Idol, so its only marginally better than ANTM itself. Both of them get smoked by The Biggest Loser, since it seems like the show starts off everytime with almost all enormously fat people but only the skinniest ones make it through. Judging must be atrocious.

How the hell do I change the banner thing at the top of my blog? I want a cool photo one like Frankie or Ex-Millenial Girl. Hippo would prolly get one too, but I have no idea where this goes in the code. Hopefully the “off-season” that is so fast approaching will give me some time to develop stuff like that. Hippo says that if we would just leave our computers home while we were out of town she would figure it out, but she’s not gonna stay up all night when we’re actually here. Meow-standable.

Peace,

MB-K

Read My Lips Carefully, If You Like What you See, Move, Groove, Prove You Can Hang With Butt

2006-02-28T22:20:00.000-05:00

Olympics are over, but were awesome. We watched at least a couple hours every night, but the fact that we had districts prep the last week sort of threw things off track. Anyway, we qualified a team to the NDT, they debated very well and we were all hella proud of them. Even took a ballot off Harvard LP in round 4, the only team to cut down the actual Ivy League team in attendance (I don’t include Cornell because, well, why would I include Cornell…) Things got a little messed up at times, but it all worked out in the end. Had some quality performances in other divisions too, but I was, for all practical purposes, at a different tournament than the rest of the team this week. We are officially in post-season mode now, but also in the stretch of quality hotels. We started this weekend with the best hotel room I have ever seen for 79 bucks a night. Big and comfortable, with legitimate cozy chairs, and pillow-top mattresses, free wireless, and something else incredibly awesome. But it needs some lead up:

I have been complaining, since I was about 16 years old, about physical cash. I simply don’t see the need for it, and I never have. Back then I might have been a little premature, almost no fast food restaurants had even caught on, pay at the pump wasn’t a thing. The idea that you could go anywhere expecting to pay with a credit card was unreasonable. Today, there is just no excuse whatsoever to have an establishment which is cash only. The drive-in movie theater down the street has a wireless network at this point, so I’m less than persuaded about the claim that its too difficult or too expensive. Anyway, when credit cards became a standard in the world of gas pumps and MickeyDs I said there were two impediments to credit cards completely supplanting the need for physical currency. The first is the transfer of small amounts of money between individual people. Pay pal is getting closer, but I think the real solution is USB plugged units and cell phone devices that can take credit cards. The latter is a ways away, since most of us still can’t afford a true Treo or Palm device which is in anyway close to the tech that would be required. The former can’t be far, in my mind, maybe in combination with something like PayPal that would allow you to easily scan credit cards and communicate with an authentication provider. Maybe security issues are still too important, but since you can purchase virtually anything online with only the credit card number, it seems that the actual scan of the card could only be an upgrade.

The second impediment: vending machines. Well, without my knowledge someone, at least someone at the Courtyard Marriott in Danbury, CT, has fixed this problem. Sure, the Diet Pepsi was a buck fifty, but I’m always happy to pay a bit more for the convenience. I obviously cannot even emphasize how wonderful it would be if I never had to go to an ATM again. Its like the whole world is my Sonic drive-in.

Back to the Olympics. I have two quick takes:

Apollo’s last night was legendary, prolly the greatest night during the Torino games. That gold medal race was incredible and even Olympics haters have to admit that the 500 meter short track is up there in the most exciting minutes in sports entertainment. Apollo was incredible, going wire to wire to hold off a great dash by the South Koreans. Not to mention that his coming up the backside to squeeze the American team into bronze was a great comeback, since I said with about 4 laps to go that they were stick-a-fork-in-them-done. By far the most excited I’ve been about “the chase for bronze” pretty much ever.

Am I a Bodeist? I had really mixed feelings when I saw the interview following the DQ in the fifth bonering of a ski race Bode had executed in a row. I mean, since Dave and Dan there has not been this much hype let down this fast. D00d came in with the potential to be the greatest winter games athlete of all time (though I guess anyone who enters 5 events does so) and left without making noise even once. That’s not even to mention that he didn’t look good or get DQ’ed because sometimes, when you push it all the way, you miss a gate. He sucked cuz he was lazy and partied too hard. At the same time, I saw a lot of my own attitudes towards being rich and famous in Bode’s series of excuses for not winning gold. He refused to apologize for living the life he wants to live and said basically “Skiing is my job, not my life.”

I totally respect that in a professional athlete, if anything it reminds me of the things I was thinking right after Ricky Williams took off for Bongville. I guess I was conflicted simply because, as much as I want that from a professional, I do not want it from an Olympian. The good stories, see Apollo above, are too much fun (I mean like actually inspiring, and not just like the Fugees cover of “No Woman, No Cry” sort of way) and with Bode the only good stories are that he applied his lips to the snow in a sort of sucking motion for two weeks.

Alright, I am food drunk from tonight’s Mardi Gras steak dinner, and Hippo needs to take her medicine, though this is a claim that Hippo herself, seems to dispute.

Peace,

MB-K

Because The Night, Belongs To Lovers, Because The Night, Belongs to Butt

2006-02-19T23:54:00.000-05:00

We went to the Orchestra this past Thursday. I don’t know a lot about music in general, and the orchestra in specific (perfect sentence construction, btw). I did learn a couple interesting facts, which, as a non-Orchestrian, I will share for your enlightenment:

--you can get drinks: I mean, you technically cannot drink during the music, which is what separates the Orchestra from awesome. Nonetheless, you can get a decent glass of whisky for a semi-reasonable price both before the show and during halftime. (Sidenote: the Orchestra doesn’t call it halftime.) If you go find one of the bar-tenders who looks like a hipcat and somehow signal to him that you are also a hipcat, not one of the squares who makes up the regular audience, I think you can get him to pour you what is essentially a double. At least it seemed that way.

--it’s hard to figure out what to watch: maybe this is not true if you know a lot about music. For many of the songs I had no idea what was going on. I mean, I can tell when the tuba goes off and the cymbals are hard to confuse. But seriously, there are like 40 people on the stage, which makes it hard to tell what is being featured at the time. Katie pointed out to me that a bunch of the old people close their eyes, which is a lot like wearing a wet suit into the hot-tub as far as I can tell. I decided to just sort of follow whatever I found was interesting. By far the most interesting part, when certain guys really get going on the violin, it looks like they are engaging in an activity which is totally inappropriate for the Orchestra stage.

--the drummer is faking it: the guy who stands by the tympani, specifically. I would say “the guy who plays the tympani” but the problem is that he doesn’t, play it that is. He just moves a couple of padded sticks as if he were going to play the tympani. Katie tried to excuse this behavior by saying that because the tympani is so powerful he just sort of needs to lightly touch, almost brush the drum. That, however, is obviously crap. If you had a tympani you would smack it, cuz that’s how you play the freaking drums. Seriously, this guy just gestured towards the drum in a rhythm he found interesting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good gig if you can get it, but the Larry David look-alike in the penguin suit has nothing over me when it comes to rocking out Orchestra style on the air-tympani.

--if you hide them in your coat, you can get away with eating chocolate covered peanuts during the show: nothing really to add to this one. Just don’t let the ushers see you, cuz they look like the meanest set of volunteers ever.

We are watching ice dancing, which is sad and funny in and of itself I know, but even more notable, is the fact that there is apparently something during this second free program called “The Twizzle Section.” I think they should adopt this for baseball as well, cuz I would be way more excited if they changed “The Bottom of the Fifth” to “The Twizzle Section.” Plus Joe Buck would be hilarious. Dick Button also complained that the Ukrainian pair did not seem to be “oozing Latin flavor.” I’m not gonna comment about what that means for ice-dancing’s validity as a sport, but merely to indicate that I’m no more surprised about the Ukrainian lack of Latin flavor than I am about Ethiopian cuisine’s lack of Beluga caviar.

Hippo sez that if I am going to talk about caviar then I really need to get her some more kitty food, cuz gourmet stuff like that really makes her purr.

Peace,

MB-K

Ain't It Just Like a Friend of Mine, It Hit Me From Behind, I'm Gone To Carolina in My Butt

2006-02-14T15:54:00.000-05:00

Binghamton finished up pretty strong in some respects, poor in others. We only cleared two teams (out of 12, painful) but had a novice team in semis and an open team in finals. Most of the squad had moved up a level, at least, so we can take solace in that fact as we lick our wounds prepping for the NDT qualifier and CEDA East Regionals. Lots of work to do, but we’ve got plans.

We didn’t get home from the Binghamton tournament until about 4:10 am on Monday morning, leaving Binghamton in the area of 11:00. A couple hours of sleep and an episode of Ellen later, we were back on the road to Rochester debate practice. I would normally not mention that fact, but when we stopped at the diner (our traditional pre-practice coaches’ meeting) we saw a big group of guys sitting at the table we usually sit at. I didn’t think anything of it, we went to our table and sat down. A couple minutes later, the owner comes over and asks us if we noticed the d00ds next to us. Turns out, World Heavyweight Champion Hasim Rahman had been sitting at our table, eating at our diner. I’m no boxing fanboy, but I’ve even seen this dude fight, and the thought had never crossed my mind. Apparently he was training in Rochester, I guess I’ll keep my eyes wider open next time.

Anyway, stories with fewer boxing champions and way better food. Katie and I spent Valentine’s Day in our traditional spot, the Marriott Fallsview Hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Our first year together in Buffalo we just had dinner at the Terrapin Grille. Last year we moved up to staying in the hotel and having breakfast as well. This year we upgraded further, getting the room (still including Jacuzzi and miraculous falls-view, as pictured above) along with a package that included a significant dinner voucher and free breakfast buffet. Katie got a nice nap on the pillow topped king-size bed while I watched the Olympics.

That brings me to the one thing, on this trip, I discovered that Canada rocks: the Winter Olympics. I mean, they love the winter games in the Northern half of North America. No surprise, I suppose, since their alternative might be the CFL or CBA, but regardless, most of the games seem to ring stronger with the Canadian audience. As a consequence of that fact, I would suppose, the Olympic coverage on CBC kicks the living hell out of NBC’s. Not only is there way way way way more (like every moment of the day besides a half hour for morning, noon, and evening news) but it covers far more sports far better. I watched the final two periods of the Canadian men’s hockey game live this morning and yesterday afternoon featured the entirety of the Women’s Team Sprint in cross country skiing and, at two separate times, the varying components of the Nordic Combined. As a sort of corollary, CBC offers the Olympics on demand, that is, 13 separate events which you can watch, in their entirety every day. Rock.

When Katie managed to wake up from her long winter’s nap, we headed down to aforementioned Terrapin Grille. We did this dinner up proper style, certainly the best food I’ve had in a long long time. Not that we go out for a lot of multi-hundred dollar dinners these days, but still. We started out with a three appetizer combo, featuring some delightful smoked salmon, bruschetta, and a tiger-prawn shrimp cocktail. We had a bottle of Chardonnay which was a bit sweet for my tastes, but was Katie friendly. She had a pan-seared Chilean sea bass, which I believe was a rerun of a previous year. It was very tasty, though I must say, I topped her this time around, with a 9 oz filet and an 8 oz lobster tail. It was, even for me, a lot of hella delicious food. We finished with strawberry shortcake which featured cream cheese frosting, a miraculous idea in my mind. The bite of the cream cheese balances the juicy sweetness of the berries much better than whipped cream alone, which more sort of absorbs it.

This morning continued our food-extravaganza with a breakfast buffet which is a way better deal when it is included with your room. That said, its worth it to me even if you gotta pay for it, cuz it features my two absolute favorite breakfast foods: omelettes made by an omelette chef right in front of you and Belgian waffles with whipped cream. I had a couple of each, along with some sausage, bacon, potatoes, and the absolute largest croissant I have ever personally encountered. I don’t think Katie took as big an advantage of the omelette station as she should have, but for some reason she does not believe me when I attempt to convince her that Holiday related meals are calorie free.

A great experience overall, which we capped off by stopping at the J. Crew outlet so Katie could buy a panda themed nightgown. Hippo was snuggling with her earlier and indicated that it was the only J. Crew garment ever which deserved the title that she herself embodies: really cute.

Peace,

MB-K

I Love it When You Call Me Big Poppa, You Got a Gun Up in Your Waist, Please Don't Shoot Up the Butt

2006-02-12T12:47:00.000-05:00

A lot of people hate on the Olympics. I don’t just mean that there are people who don’t watch the Olympics, though I think that is sad too. I am talking about people who actively hate on the games. Take this douche for example. I know he’s talking about the summer games in 2000, but fundamentally the points people make are the same. In the spirit of most of the debates I’ve seen at the Binghamton tournament, I’m not gonna answer all his claims on the line by line, I’m just gonna give the reasons I fucking love the Olympics.

--the storylines: the most legitimate criticism that I think exists about the Olympics is technically about Olympics television coverage, but I will, for today at least, concede this connection. Specifically, I mean that NBC does often spend too much time focusing on the excessively melodramatic stories, not even just the cool ones. That said, while a bunch of this shit is trite and overplayed (not quite to the level of Connelly’s bits on Sportscenter, but its close) there are some legitimately incredible stories. You can view this in several ways: 1) it applies to all sports today, if you don’t like sports on TV, then sure, I guess this is not convincing 2) stories in sports are fun, they get me emotionally invested in something that I might never experience without it 3) think about it like a regular narrative show if you want, its like a reality curling show.

--the creative games: I’m not pretending that I like the giant slalom as much as I dig the NFL. More than anything else, I’m a fan of the four major team sports in this country. That said, its fun to see some games that I don’t really understand and would never get exposure to under other circumstances. Gaining that pseudo-expertise I have by the second week about short track speed skating really makes my day in ways I cannot explain to you. Not to mention this: curling rules. There is nothing more fun than getting hella intoxicated and discussing Norway’s best bowler.

--the lack of money: we all know that Bode is getting paid and Sean White is not lacking in endorsements either, but 99% of the people at the Olympics, even 99% of the American athletes, aren’t making shit off their sports. The two-person luge team rarely gets calls from Nike or Pepsi. I don’t think that money contaminates sports, but its fun seeing people play them for reasons besides money. I could turn this into a discussion about how it’s a strategy of capitalism to create zones wherein true affectivity and emotion emerge outside of economics, but that indicates that I have spent way too much time explaining Zizek link stories. Maybe its just that I really like the idea that there are people who really love something to the extent that they would put in that much work with no risk of economic gain and most likely, paying a significant amount of money just to do that work. I can’t really imagine it, but I like it.

--the love of the game: to some extent you could say this overlaps with the money question, and I guess it does, but there is more too. I was watching the Opening Ceremonies and they mentioned that 90%+ of these athletes have no chance at a medal. There are obviously some surprises and such, but for virtually everyone just getting to the Olympics is the ultimate prize. Watching nations with one athlete march into the stadium, knowing they have no chance to win, and still enjoying themselves to this extent is incredible to watch.

--peace: I saw an affirmative a couple years back about the Athens Summer games that had some incredible cards about how all the nations at the games agree not to fight with each other militarily for those two weeks. I mean, it doesn’t solve much in terms of actuality, but the critical potential was excellent. Outside of freaking debate, however, I like the constant invocations of peaceful competition. Even if you don’t want to see Yoko Ono introduce Peter Gabriel singing “Imagine,” the acrobats forming a dove is pretty freaking cool.

I’m not gonna force this to go to 10 items for the sake of list-coherence. I will have specific commentary later on during the games, especially when I actually get to watch more than the first period of a women’s hockey game or the ski jumping preliminaries. Hippo, on the other hand, got to enjoy the 5000 meter speedskate gold medal and even the biathalon. She wanted to note that, even to the world’s smartest Persian cat, skiing and shooting doesn’t make that much sense. Unless, potentially, you are hunting elk, though she recommends just chasing them down and ripping them to the ground with your vicious claws.

Peace,

MB-K

Since U Been Gone, I Can Breathe For the First Butt

2006-02-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

Since we’ve been home, we went to Bard for the first time. That was the inaugural tournament of CEDA East’s spring semester and Rochester did, kind of legitimately at least, rock the hizzy. We had a novice team lose in finals, an open team go down in semis (both 2-1s btw) and closed out JV in semis, winning three of our four quarters debates on 3-0s. Anyway, it was a quality weekend overall, excluding the shittiness of the drive home. I got to watch the Super Bowl over the weekend on my beautiful TV. I didn’t think it was the best game of the year, jobviously, but it wasn’t nearly as terrible as the rubes on national and Buffalo sports radio made it out to be. There were some bad calls, there were some blown plays. I didn’t get to watch as much of the Puppy Bowl as I did last year, unfortunately. Even more unfortunate is that I missed the kitten halftime show, I guess I just left the Rolling Stones on while I whipped up round two of Super Bowl appetizers. I had a concoction made of proscuitto and gruyere, rolled and baked in puff pastry. My pastry skills are significantly lower than most of my other culinary abilities, so they didn’t turn out nearly as well as Paula had manufactured them on Christmas Eve. On the other hand, my bacon wrapped water chestnuts were very possibly the best that have ever been produced. I can honestly say that bwwc’s might be the only food I have never had the opportunity to eat more than I want of. I mean, I had four Double Quarter Pounders back in the day, I’ve eaten steaks that are far too large for any human being, and I took down most of a gallon of ice cream in one sitting back in the day. At least I have an idea for my next solo celebratory function.

We are actually at the Binghamton tournament now, after a pretty pleasant drive on the way down here. I genuinely hate this debate tournament, it tends to be really long. There is also a bunch of silly Valentine's Day related stuff that I think borders somewhere between annoying and sexual harrassment. Nonetheless, the competition itself should be interesting, we have alot of teams moving up, a good number of new people who seem enthusiastic, and a pretty good sized squad (12 teams).

Here is my one observation for the day: most people who go to Applebees suck. Tonight, as we all gathered to determine where we are going for dinner, a tremendous swelling of enthusiasm for Applebees ensued. I have literally never seen so much enthusiasm for an Applebees. Thats not to say that people were dancing in the hotel parking lot Mardi Gras style, but we're talking about going to Applebee's here, lets put it in perspective. Given that the object in question was "Going to Applebees" there was an outswell of love which, per capita, far surpassed that of, say, the moon landing. (punctuation count for that last sentence: 7 seperate marks) Anyway, there was a great cross section of the American public, most notable:

-the woman at the table behind us had really terrible bangs. I mean, its gotta mean something if I can notice how bad your bangs are. She looked like the manicure lady from Legally Blonde if you took away any semblance of attractiveness. Merkel turned around to look at her in the least subtle way ever.

-the d00d accross from us was wearing a baseball hat which featured the Confederate flag as the background, with a 12 point buck in front of it. The text below it: "American Outlaw." I suppose to one extent its true, you could call the confederacy "American Outlaws." At the same time though, you are not exactly celebrating the American part are you? Isn't the whole point of the confederacy that it wasn't America? Not to mention, where the fuck does the deer play into this. I at least expect some thought to go into your racist headwear. Don't you have something a little dressier, maybe a burning cross on a bowler or something, for your high scale trips to the city?

-the girl who walked by our table prolly more times than our waitress, wearing white sweatpants that were either entirely see-thru, or simply see-thru enough that you could determine precisely her lack of underwear. It wasn't porno style, but it was glaring. Lavin pulled a sweet Merkel following her around the corner.

After we had finished our dinner, paid, and were standing outside I was doing what I usually do. By that I mean, swearing loudly to make passerby uncomfortable and groove dancing to the ricokculously loud 80s music that Applebees featured as their "Welcome" music. At some point they replaced Duran Duran's "Rio" with Jewel's "I Was Meant For You." The thing about that song, besides the fact that it was from way back before Jewel lost like 50 pounds so she looked like Skeletor and then became a shitty poet (general summary of Jewel's poetry: living out of your car sucks), is that its nothing more than her narrating the random unexciting events of her day. As an example:

I got my eggs and my pancakes too/I got my maple syrup, everything but you./I break the yolks, make a smiley face/I kinda like it in my brand new place/I wipe the spots off the mirror/Don't leave the keys in the door

I mean, I get that there are some metaphors and imagery in that bad boy, but for the most part you could call the song "I had breakfast." I'm just sayin, if I could yodel...

Hippo's not here, of course, but she said to say hello when I talked to her via the CatPhone earlier. As always shes having some kitten friends over for a keg of cream and some pounce treats. They better not ash their catnip pipes all over the carpet, we just vaccuumed.

Peace,

MB-K

Blowing All the Other Kids Away, We Won't Be Moved, We Can See Right Through, All of Your Butt

2006-02-07T01:22:00.000-05:00

I suck at updating my blog. I got it. This has been a really annoying couple of weeks in several ways. Busy, I suppose, but this type of business is all but unavoidable, so I won’t blame it. Instead I will blame the fact that in the past three weeks I have been sick twice. That, in my world, is ridiculous. And I don’t just mean mildly uncomfortable cold situations, like debilitatingly sick, twice. Both times I came home feeling fine after debate practice (usually around 10:00-ish) and ended up going to sleep feeling sick before midnight. I woke up the next morning in terrible condition and was O.O.C. the entire following day. The end recovery time was a little more drastic this time around and besides the general sickness portion of the experience, the symptoms were not that similar. The first time around was my stomach and while that sucked, it went away fast. This time it was focused around an intensely sore throat and meant that I slept about 19 hours on each of the first two days I was down. Anyway, 2-3 days down not only conks out those evenings, but the 4-5 that follow as I try to catch up with both the work and the non-sick relaxing (maybe this concept is part of the problem) that I missed out on.

Regardless, I’m not gone forever. Hell, I’m gonna catch up to the actual present date in the next several posts. I will make at least a little bit of a run at it:

I left off one aspect of Texas that was cool, specifically the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot. I was a big Kennedy assassination buff when JFK came out and such, so it was incredible to see. The museum itself is not always climactic when you know a lot about the situation, but its still awesome to see all the artifacts of the Warren Commission, the original notes reporters took from the press bus, not to mention the place where everything occurred. The grassy knoll is a cool location itself and I spent a couple minutes after the actual museum inside hanging out with a dude who showed me around the area, precisely where the car was during different parts of the Zapruder film, etc. He knew his stuff, especially considering that he appeared to be homeless or of very low socio-economic class. Not to say that people in those circumstances can’t be outstandingly intelligent, just that you see few of them occupying their days showing tourists around Dealey Plaza. Employed/housed/etc. or not, his time deserved a couple of my bucks. At the fence on the Grassy Knoll, the spot where, to be entirely honest, anyone planning the situation would have planned it, there are all these messages and inscriptions written into the wall. I took photos of all the relevant stuff here.

By the time we got back from Texas we only had a couple days left in Minneapolis. They were a whirlwind of seeing fam, friends, and judging at the State Tournament. Much belated props to Pete for bringing Rosemount their first ever State Championship. I echo Katie's comments.

Our ride home was uneventful, though Sunday night, which we spent in the vaunted Motel 6 of South Bend, IN, was eventful in a not especially exciting way, that being Katie’s own debilitating sickness. She was thankfully tough enough to allow us to make the last 7 hours on Monday morning, thus returning the two of us and our lovely Miss Hippo to the apartment, the HDTV, and our comfortable family friendly environment. Hippo is, at the moment currently demanding that I follow her into the back bedroom, most likely so I can see what an incredible job she has done playing with the pencil I set on the floor for her earlier today. As such, I will pick up from our return to Lockport tomorrow.

Peace,

MB-K

I Look Straight at What's Coming Ahead and Soon its Gonna Change in a New Direction, Every Night as I'm Falling Asleep, These Words Repeated in My Butt

2006-01-22T14:57:00.000-05:00

I am a pretty generally healthy person, generally just meaning that I am rarely sick. Thursday night, however, I became about as ill as I likely get in a given year. I was reading this hilarious series of articles about erotic video games and all of a sudden felt like I was going to pass out. I was admittedly laughing pretty hard at the description of Beat ‘Em and Eat ‘Em but the fact that I was bed ridden for the next 30 odd hours makes me think it wasn’t just that. Regardless, after drinking a two liter of Sprite, watching Ocean’s Twelve, and annoying Katie with my requests for soda and water, I am in much better condition and continue the TC recap.

--Lambeau Field: It certainly was far from a dream season for the Pack attack in 2005, but even a 3-12 game against the number 1 seed in the NFC is an NFL excursion at the greatest stadium in the history of sports. My dad and I got up at 5 in the morning, giving me a approximately 3 hours of sleep to deal with 4 bottles of champagne. I was not wide awake, to say the least, but 3-4 Diet Red Bulls kept me in the swing of things for most of the ride. We made great time, went to Kroll’s for a brat and a beer, before heading to the game. I bought a really spiffy new hat (technically, my dad bought it) and have actually never had a black Packer’s cap before. The game was really fun to watch, the crowd was full and in good spirits, and the Packers, though not playing a team that had much to worry about, came through strong. Brett through a touchdown, which was fun to watch after 3-4 weeks of nothing.

My dad and I came into the game confident that number four was coming back. It just didn’t seem likely that he would leave on this low a note and all. The entire NorthEastern section of Wisconsin always explodes when they announce the quarterback from Southen Mississippi, but it was potentially even more significant that day. When it was all said and done, when the Packers got the ball back to end the game, Sherman pulled Brett and the ovation was deafening. It went on for several minutes, everyone in Green Bay on their feet, and while that doesn’t prove anything, Brett made a bigger deal than I would usually expect. He was waving and playing to the crowd on his way off the field, which really made me question if he was leaning the other way. The fact that they ditched Sherman not more than 20 hours after the end of the game seemed odd to me as well.

Anyway, we saw my Grandma for a while, and she was doing alright. We had dinner with her and talked for a couple hours before crashing at the casino/hotel that evening. I won 50 some dollars playing craps and left early the next morning, using a couple more Diet Red Bulls (potentially my new favorite thing) to make the drive home.

--Texas: We were home from Lambeau about 10:30, which meant I was able to get 2:30 hours sleep/bowl game watching before heading to the airport via Katie’s rents. Our flight to Dallas was uneventful, though Katie and I weren’t able to sit next to each other (I guess that’s what you get flying on January 2nd). DFW airport is, literally, the worst location in the entire world. It is much less an airport than it is a randomly organized series of buildings linked by an incoherently labeled and arranged set of roads and ramps that connect them. The rental car facility is about 3-5 miles away from the terminals, even worse than that at Logan. It took us over an hour from the time our plane landed to get our luggage, get to the rental joint, and get back to the terminals with the cars. I got to drive a Durango, which I ended up really enjoying. It sucks gas like an urban myth about Alanis Morissette, but it’s a hella comfy ride.

The first tournament was at North Texas and it gets my Diet Red Bull award for best debate tournament in Texas that I have ever attended. I believe that every round was contained in 3ish floors of a single building. The judging was pretty good all around, there were some pretty entertaining debates, I got 3 of them off, and the food was pretty impressive (pretty impressive being the average of really shitty breakfast and really incredible lunch). I even got home in time to see both of the BCS games that occurred on the evenings of prelims. The neighborhood around the university was chweet, little bars and shops that seemed totally out of place for a Northern suburb of Dallas. We had some success all around, especially considering that many of our teams moved up for the first half of the swing. It was a great tournament, they should’ve done it twice.

Especially considering that the second tournament kind of bit it. I mean, the food was still aight (way better breakfast, way worse lunch on one day, almost as good the other) but the tournament was spread randomly across one of the least interesting campuses I have ever seen. Most of the open rounds were in two buildings which were nowhere near each other and the JV debates were literally across the campus from both of them, all of which were at least a 10 minute walk from the food/meeting place. The tournament treated the JV kids like they were more a nuisance than anything else, and since 5 of our 6 teams were there, it kinda pissed me off. We still had a decent tournament, clearing in open and winning the novice breakout.
Even more interesting than the debating in Texas was the food. I sampled four different barbecue joints, Coulter’s, Rudy’s, Sonny Bryant’s, and Spring Creek. Coulter’s was my personal fave, though Sonny Bryant’s had pretty solid pulled pork as well. Spring Creek had some smoked sausage that was off the hook, but their sauce paled in comparison. I know my proclivities towards pork make me biased towards East Coast ‘cue, but I can respect the brisket and none of these joints disappointed. I was surprised by the generally low quality BBQ beans, at which I expected Tejas to excel, but still.

The hamburgers were also really really good. I ate at Whataburger (my first time) Jack in the Box (been there, but awesome) and Sonic (about 4 times, cuz whoa damn do I love Sonic). Seriously, everything about that place is awesome. The ordering is better than a drive-thru, the jalapeno cheeseburger is phat, the cream pie shakes are the nutz, and the ability to get tater tots instead of fries-wow. This doesn’t even get in to the supersonic breakfast burrito or the Cherry Limeades, but suffice to say I would very rarely eat at any other fast food joint in the event that my hometown featured a Sonic.

Hippo is all over me about going to play on the new sheets we got with her catnip bubbles, so I will have to continue with the Sixth Floor Museum later.

Peace,

MB-K

Come and Get Your Butt

2006-01-15T02:31:00.000-05:00

This is Hippo's last picture at my Dad's house during the Winter of 2005. She found a number of interesting little spots to lay in over the course of the month or so that we were back in town, most notably the Christmas village, which is well illustrated over at our new and deluxe Fickr site. I'm not going to attempt to bore you with the excessive details of the world since December 10th-ish. But I will supply the highlights:

--Blake: Tournament was good, hanging was fun. We had dinner with Karly and Kari on Thursday night at The King and I, one of the several high quality Thai dinners we enjoyed back in the land where Thai food doesn't suck. I bought Andy a birthday card at the Rainbow joint by the SuperAmerica and I would claim that it is the best birthday card ever purchased by anyone. If he wouldn't have briefly lost it, I think that showing it to Doobs would have been the coolest thing ever. This year's dinner for the Round Robin beat the hell out of last year's, seeing as I a) did not sprain my ankle and b) there was enough of some really good food. The fajitas were yummy and it contained the best mass produced flan I can possibly imagine. Debates were also good, I got to watch a high quality team from Greenhill, a woman with alot of potential and a cool argument from LeMars, and how can I forget the FOUR CONSECUTIVE DEBATES WHERE I JUDGED ROSEMOUNT LL. It was legitimately hilarious when they selected me to judge them in both rounds 3 and 4, though not nearly as funny as LaZ0r catching a pop tart in his mouth.

--Family: We spent a good amount of time with both our families. We were staying at my dad's, jobviously, and crashed at Katie's parents on Christmas eve and a couple other times. We had coffee and hung with my mom and Deb several times, it was weird to be at the house and see Chewie without Geezer around, but I was happy mom didn't have to worry about covering the couches with sheets quite so much. We saw both of our sisters a couple times, but my bro, of course, was occupied with monkies and the like in Lobpuri. I got to talk to him a couple times, a surprise call on Christmas morning (night for him) and Andy's brilliant decision to call him on the cell phone on New Year's Eve. I haven't gotten the update on how much taht call cost, but it was nice that the gang got to say hello.

--Christmas: I'm not going to go off on the joys of the Holdiay, the spirit of the season encompassed by friends and family, gathered together around the tree, the fire, the presents, the goose, etc. Those things were all true, well not so much the goose, but nonetheless. Even beyond the joys of being with Katie, with our parents, etc. Christmas has two connotations to me: 1) Hippo, who we met for the first time last Christmas eve 2) beef. Thats right: beef. We had four different types of steak over the two days that encompass the holiday. Prime rib, to kick things off at Paula's, where we also watched the NFL schedule on an enormous television and ate alot of some high quality apps. Most notable: shrimp cocktail, puff pastry filled with gruyere and proscuitto, and the greatest appetizer of all time, Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts. Dinner also featured the garlicy-delicious potatoes that Paula will always be famous for and a Stilton sauce for the meat, a requested repeat of last winter, that was wonderful. I should note the one negative aspect of Christmas eve, which was that I fell, attempting to stop one of the dogs from burying a drippy beef bone in a white sofa. Of course my attempt to save the sofa resulted in the half glass of wine I was carrying crashing to the floor, but I have been told that all signs have vanished. My leg was also a bit messed up for the remainder of the evening.

We waited just long enough to eat again and had some delightful fondue Kauf-style. The cheese was probably better than it has ever been and wow was there alot of it. The beef was similarly exciting, especially since the crazies can cook it as dark as they want while I still get it perfectly rare. The salad would be exceptional with any other meal, but it still deserves mention, since it features both bacon and eggs on spinach. Yumm. Everybody got presents they enjoyed, there were tasty beverages for all, and I still got to sleep at a reasonable hour. Had an impossible time finding a mass on Christmas morning, which, in case you were wondering, did in fact piss me off. As luck would have it, however, that was the time I got the call from my brother and had a very nice 10 minute convo. We had Christmas lunch, more steak, supplemented by a yummy pork roast, and a batch of Twice Baked Potatoes that were fabulous. Dinner was again in St. Paul, the final excellent piece of beef for the evening. This one was also perfectly cooked and served with a horseradish sauce that I could eat on an old shoe. There was also a potato mushroom gratin that I was too full to appreciate and some green onion cheddar popovers that I am without question going to replicate.

--New Year's: There were a couple of different adjectives we played around with to describe the NYE celebration that occurred to ring in 2006. There was "intimate" "calm" and "buttsex" among others, each was incredily accurate. It was still a hella good time, I drank 4 bottles of Champagne, smoked a cigar, and enjoyed the company of the men and women still in town. There were a number of familiar faces we missed that night, Wilking and Jen (who for some lame reason decided to celbrate in Galena), my bro and Melia (who for some lame reason decided not to fly home from Thailand), and Sanjay (who for some lame reason did not come home at all from Eugene). There are pictures on our Flickr of that occasion as well, sponsored by Andy J. If you were curious as to why so many of those pictures were of Kevin sitting in the corner, the basic answer is this: I was trying to steal his soul, which apparently, cameras can do. I couldn't find the "extract soul" mode, so I just went with "portrait." I think it worked out well.

Hippo wants everyone to know that, despite not having updated in a month, I should not attempt to overdue it. Instead, I should fill up her food dish. I think this is largely a self-serving decision on the behalf of my persian, but nonetheless, I obey.

Peace,

MB-K

Livin Fast and Dyin Young Like an Endless Poetry, My Motor Psycho Nightmare Freakout Inside of Butt

2005-12-12T13:44:00.000-05:00

Sorry this picture of a Whistle Pig just sat here for so long. I really suck at using the internet when I am not in my usual settings. As a result, I jobviously did not update my blog.

Anyway, the day before we left Buffalo for the Twin Cities was a day full of errand running in advance of the movement. We hit the outlet mall and on our way home drove by this restaurant which I have seen since the first week or so that I lived here. The sign on the top of the restaurant indicates very clearly that it is "The Home of the Whistle Pig" but I had absolutely no idea what this delightful sounding device might be.

We had a couple for lunch and not only were the economical, they were both incredibly brilliant and incredibly delicious. Here is the basic idea: take a good quality hot dog, wrap it in bacon, grill it, serve it with cheese sauce. Add to that your onions, mustard, ketchup, assorted relishes, and you have a high quality dawg. I can't believe I had never considered wrapping bacon around a hot dog before, since the addition of bacon, as I have often said, makes pretty much anything good.

Real update soon to follow above. Again, sorry bout having to look at the whistle pig for a month.

Peace,

MB-K

If You Believe, They Put a Man on the Butt

2005-12-10T19:16:00.000-05:00

I had to pick up some more Coke Zero at the Tops this evening. I am totally addicted to Coke Zero in a way that makes it just under infinitely more enjoyable than drinking Diet Coke. The difference, I learned in the not too distant past, has to do with the fact that Coke Zero is based on the formula for Coca-Cola Classic, while Diet Coke was based on the formula for New Coke. Hence the taste difference has less to do with the difference in sweeteners (which is almost non-existent) than with the fact that they are two entirely different beverages. Anyway, I went to buy that and some other random crap from the store.

The last area I visited was the ice cream section, cuz we were in dire need of Mint Choco-Chip. Right across the aisle from the ice cream are located the alcoholic beverages, by which I mean beer, malt liquor, and Boone’s. There was a family standing there, with two kids of about 12-14 years of age. I’m not a great estimator in these calculations, but there is no way either of them was more than a second year in high school. Anyway, family at Tops, not surprising. However, the family was each selecting their own type of wine cooler. I mean, the two girls in that pre-teen/early teen area were arguing over which flavor of wine cooler they should buy while the parents tried to convince them to compromise. I cannot, of course, rule out the possibility that these girls just really wanted to pick out their parents drinks for some reason, but I got the very distinct impression that they would be the ones imbibing. Their parents even tried to move them along when I shot them a momentarily confused glance. Anyway, to all the drunk 13 year olds in Lockport tonight, while I don’t necessarily condone your behavior: holla!!

We have made some incredible inroads into our backed up Tivo situation today, aided of course by the fact that reruns have already begun for the holiday season. We will be home long enough to see the Survivor finale, but will depend on the kindness of friends, family, and maybe a couple strangers who will tivo the other events for us. There is still an Apprentice finale to worry about, though I feel confident that Randal will take it home. I think we will miss the Amazing Race 2 hour conclusion, but since it has been a terrible season anyway, I’m not sweating it. I’ll have to worry about finding episodes of Lost and such when the season’s resume in January of ought-six, but I’m depending on the good karma I plan to rack up in the TC.

We are leaving Tuesday after Katie’s yoga class to begin our journey home. We wanted to have at least a day at my dad’s place with Hippo to get her settled before we hauled off to the Hyatt for 4 days. We have a Motel 6 reservation in Toledo somewhere, so we’ll drive 5-6 hours on Tuesday night, stop at about midnight-one, get up and leave nice and early, hopefully getting into the twin cities in the early evening. We can chill with the Persian, set up her scratchy post and such. That’s as specific as I can be about plans at this point.

On a sad note, I saw that Richard Pryor passed away today. I was obviously pretty young when Richard Pryor was at his prime, but I think I caught up enough on my stand up back in the day to appreciate what he did. I guess it was far from unexpected, in a sense. He hadn’t been in good health for a while and he lived hard by anyone’s standards. I suppose he can’t be lumped in with the Belushis or Farleys, dying at the height of their fame, but still, rest in peace.

While Hippo has enjoyed having us around all day, I think she wants to sleep on the computer, so I will relent. Saturday or not, she needs the old catnap.

Peace,

MB-K

Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Butt

2005-12-09T19:25:00.000-05:00

We had to do a little preparatory shopping for the Rochester Holiday/End of the Semester party last night and so, as good Minnesota transplants, we went over to Target to buy essentially random commodities from people in khakis and red golf shirts. This was one of the Targets laid out with the entrance on the right hand side (maybe everyone else doesn’t pay so much attention to the general organizations of Target stores, but they tend to be either organized with the entrance on the left, the right, or both and the departments correlate) and hence the bathroom was just to the left when I entered the store. Knowing that Katie would spend a bit of time on the dollar area I stopped into the bathroom for a second.

I entered the bathroom and heard someone talking and assumed, in the abstract I guess, that he was talking to someone else in the bathroom. However, he was on the phone, jobviously, talking ostensibly to someone not in the bathroom. I don’t know if there are any ethics or common standards about talking on the phone in public bathrooms, I have always felt uncomfortable about it and not because I think there is anything so private and disgusting about the use of the bathroom that it wouldn’t be allowed. Maybe it has something to do with electronically transcending the literal walls created for the purpose of compartmentalizing the restroom-function, I will leave that determination to Baudrillard. Even if I am simply crazy and public bathroom cell-phone usage is entirely without issue, as I was leaving the restroom I heard this phrase: “Yeah, make sure you get me a raspberry-lemon…” Yes, he was ordering something, my guess is dessert, from a public bathroom stall. I have expectations, when entering the Target bathroom, that I might find piles of toilet paper on the floor, I might read something about someone’s sexual proclivities, or where they might be and what they might be doing on 12/17 at 6:45, but I operate under the assumption that I will absolutely not need to hear anyone discussing a raspberry-lemon anything.

I’m saying this, btw, while an SNL sketch about Target is on my new TV, and the irony abounds. Maybe not irony so much as coincidence and not so much coincidence as simply not at all interesting. Maybe if this was about the Target bathrooms it would be interesting. Its not.

Two debate discussions that I have stayed out of are going on right now, on different debate areas, that are interesting to me. One concerns travel and the concerns of coaches about traveling too much. I have a very odd perspective on this situation, I think, having coached a team that traveled a fair amount in Minnesota, and now dealing with collegiate debate, where the idea of a local tournament means 3-4 hours away. For most of our tournaments we drive home after one prelim and octos/quarters on about 5-8 hours. I hate it, don’t get me wrong, but it makes “travel” for most of the tournaments Minnesota teams attend seem kinda funny. I get, of course, that I’m not in the situation where I can’t miss Fridays/Mondays cuz I have a professional career, that would obviously reshape the situation.

I don’t have a team, and prolly won’t anytime soon have a team, in contention to take a run at winning the TOC. But if I did, if I had the money, time, and desire to make that run, I would be furious if the MSHSL said I had to choose between state sponsored events and “out of state” travel. Anyhow, the point is this: I am ambivalent on this question, though I feel for both sides.

I maintain that ambivalence about the proposition for OSD (Open Source Debate) that is floating around the college world. I fundamentally do believe that I could handle coaching debate at the high school level in the long run, though its probably not my number one career choice. But college debate, as it is, would kill me if I tried to really do it to it. The idea of making all the evidence available to everyone, that is, eliminating the almost impossible and excruciatingly boring demands of research in college debate, would make me almost consider handling it. I know I’m a cocky person, but in all honesty, I don’t think there is anyone who understands debate as a game better than me. There are, however, A LOT of people who cut more and better cards. I don’t know that I would care enough to try, OSD or not, to be an “elite professional debate coach” (whatever that means), but I would consider it, which is a lot more than I can say now.

Hippo, not surprisingly finds this discussion boring and would instead like me to play her new favorite game. Its called “Stick your paw in the handle on this huge TV box even though there is nothing in reachable distance and fish around like you were gonna find a floating snack or something.” The name doesn’t even approach explaining how cute it is.

Peace,

MB-K

Some Hearts, They Just Get All the Right Breaks, Some Hearts Have the Stars on their Butt

2005-12-08T23:50:00.000-05:00

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. I cannot believe it. I can’t even believe that I am making the following statement, cuz I might have otherwise said that it was a contradiction in terms. Of ANTM’s final three, THE RIGHT GIRL WON!!! If you have been watching the show, you know how impossible it is to imagine this fact, cuz it literally has never happened. In many seasons the woman who won was literally the third best of the three. Almost better, I mean, definitively not better, but still almost kinda better, but jobviously not at all better, is the fact that freaking Bre was kicked out in place number three.

Bre was seriously annoying, I mean, she was very likely even beyond Yaya in terms of assfaced annoying. She wasn’t annoying in the same pseudo-intellectual way, she was more just obnoxious to everyone decent who was ever on the program, but still, the point is clear. Nicole was my second favorite I think, after Kim. I liked Jayla for a while, but she turned out to be less cool then I thought. There still has not been anyone for the past two seasons who can compare to the two all time greatest ANTM contestants of all kind: Norelle and Shanthrax.

While I love the fashion related reality programming and will certainly have a lot to say about it with the recent debut of Project Runway season 2, I have not even mentioned what is arguably the best thing about watching them. That is, my television itself. We have been operating with a tolerable TV for a couple years now. Its not small, but by no means big. It was a good TV, it served us well. Anyway, it is technically Katie’s rent’s TV and they are now in need of it again. So, we decided to buy a new television. My thought was that we would spend a couple hundred bucks, get something moderate, but tolerable.

At the same time, I just feel stupid spending 200 dollars on a TV that is so far behind technology as to be all but irrelevant in the near future. For one thing, who still purchases televisions that aren’t flat screen? Secondly, we are like a year from the supposed “non-manufacturing of non-HD televisions stage” for the purpose of bringing HD in as the standard, so I didn’t feel great about buying one of those either. Finally, I just wanted something widescreen. I love the idea of fitting the shows and movies that I love perfectly on the television in the proper aspect ratio, not bothering to either miss the sides or have black space.

Still, I’m kind of a cheapskate when it comes to spending money on things ostensibly for myself. I don’t know why that is, but it is. Anyway, by convincing me that it would ultimately count as my Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and birthday presents for the upcoming year, Katie convinced me to buy this:

It’s a really incredible TV, especially for what we paid for it. I’m still not totally comfortable with how much it cost, but oh my God. For one thing, it’s big. 26 Inches in widescreen seems like a lot more than 26 in 4:3 aspect ratio, even if it’s not, mathematically. A bigger TV in a living room this small would border on the ridiculous. Additionally, this TV is HD ready, has like 30 inputs, and, even just connected via cable (since we’ve been too busy since the purchase to get the S-video connection set up or the new HD box) the clarity is pretty incredible. The brightness and color blow the old TV out of the water. We got a good price and good financing, so it won’t cost us too much in the long run and honestly, we watch so much freaking television that it makes sense to spend this cash in this situation. I don’t try to use my blog to reassure myself most of the time, but my priest doesn’t take confession at 11:30 on Thursdays. Certainly not about TVs.

Hippo, however, has clarified that she does take petting and attention at all times of the day, so my kitty and I will go back to watching tivoed Survivor Wednesday on OLN.

Peace,

MB-K

I Can't Live Without Your, Love and Affection, I Can't Face Another Night On My Butt

2005-12-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

Long time. My bad. I’ve been eating turkey almost literally for two solid weeks. It was a great weekend that has been followed by a rampage of work leading up to the end of the semester. I am attempting to get a couple things done before I leave here for the holidays and head back to Minneapolis and while I’m not 100% confident that all of them will get concluded in time, at least the pressing has invigorated me around the mid-point of the year.

Collegiate debate is done for 2005, after this weekend’s John Carroll Tournament in Cleveland. For the most part I love this tournament, for a lot of reasons that are not at all intrinsic to the tournament itself (it is in Cleveland, only three hours away, and the opposite direction of every other tournament we attend) and a number of others that are (good debates, technical proficiency, nice hotels, more sleep etc.). Both times I have attended this tournament we have been hit on Friday by a hella snowstorm. Two years ago it wasn’t that significant, just slowed down the last half hour or so. This year we got nailed pretty much the moment we left the New York thruway, and were destroyed pretty steadily into the parking lot at JCU. It took us almost 5 hours in total to get from our apartment to the school, compare that to the less than three hour trip we made on our return voyage.

Once we got into town I was very pleased that the snow was falling. I love the climate of a snowy day, the lax regulations on driving, and especially making fun of idiots who think its cold or can’t drive in the snow. There’s just something about the feel of a serious blizzard, the cleanness of it all. Also, we had a debater from Texas who had never seen one before, so that was an interesting situation.

My absolute favorite thing about the John Carroll tournament, beyond everything else, is the judges’ lounge. A lot of things about the judges’ lounge are pretty normal, cheetos, chips, candy, blah blah. They have donuts, not just bagels with vegan cream cheese, like a couple of tournaments in this state, in the morning and specifically they have some really excellent glazed cherry cake donuts, a personal fave of mine. But far more importantly than those tasty-m-cakes, was the greatest thing at any debate tournament ever. A FOUNTAIN SODA MACHINE.

Yep, there is a fountain soda machine which enables me to have free unlimited Diet Pepsi over the whole course of the tournament. Since I am a freaking genius who was aware of the existence of said Diet Pepsi miracle, I brought a 20oz bottle and refilled it once, maybe twice, maybe three times a debate. It is the best thing in the history of debate tournaments, end of story.

I am going to cut this post short, cuz the poor little Hippo had to take a bath tonight and now wants to sit on my computer to warm up.

Peace,

MB-K

One Thing I'm Sure of, I'm in the Deep Freeze, Cold Turkey Has Got Me on the Butt

2005-11-23T22:17:00.000-05:00

It’s almost Thanksgiving and I am officially excited. I think I’ve done all the prep work I am gonna do before the morning, that includes brining the turkey, prepping the bread for the stuffing, cleaning the kitchen, shopping for wine and produce, and now am kicking back, waiting just a bit for the proper time to open my first Sierra Nevada Celebration of the season. It ain’t Summit Winter but it’s a damn tasty beer and certainly the best winter brew available to me at the Lockport Tops.

Our meal tomorrow is gonna be incredibly good, I believe. I am adapting my turkey technique slightly, based on an article in Bon Appetit and another in Gourmet. That joins with the traditional roasting maneuvers we all know and love alongside Alton Brown’s classic episode “Romancing the Bird.” I’m following that up with Sausage Stuffing with Carmelized Onions and Leeks. Then a White Cheddar Butternut Squash Gratin, which I think looks incredible. We have the mashed taters, turkey gravy, and Katie’s incredible fresh rolls. She is attempting to outdo her own baking expertise with a chocolate pecan pie, which I can already taste. I’m making some white cheddar puffs with green onions as an appetizer, really just because I was concerned that otherwise Katie me and Hippo, with our 14 pound turkey, would not have enough to eat. My hope is that this is the last Thanksgiving we will not have people enjoying our tasty feast with us, and I think that is distinctly possible.

Jean-Luc Nancy, author of, among many other notable books and articles, The Inoperative Community, came to Buffalo yesterday. It was probably the biggest event the department has had since Žižek was here, almost three years ago. I thought there were probably in the area of 150 or so people there, a couple other people I talked to estimated between 120-175, which is a pretty big deal for a free lecture on “Church, State, Resistance.” I know people were in attendance from New York, Toronto, and Rochester, but my guess is there were a couple from other areas as well. It was his only stop on this North American tour, which I suppose makes it not much of a North American tour. Regardless, despite some really odd questions, it was pretty sweet to see him speak. Hippo told me that she jives with a lot of his argument about the constitutive nature of the separation between church and state, but I got more out of the discussions of political theology. Very cool though.

In just a couple hours the greatest holiday of the year begins. This will be Ms. Hippo’s first celebration of football, food, and alcohol as a Baxter-Kauf. She is not quite as excited for the large bird as I am, but purring in anticipation none the less.

Peace,

MB-K

Well We're Movin' On Up, To the East Side, To a Deluxe Apartment, In the Butt

2005-11-23T01:46:00.000-05:00

I started writing on blurty a long time ago and to be honest, I did it simply because it was the first free journal thing I found. While I am obviously not tremendously technologically inclined in general, the fact of the matter is that virtually every new internet-related device is built to interact with blogger. Google has a bunch of applications, Flickr is linked into it, and the list goes on. I guess my point is this. I hadn't switched over cuz I am far too lazy, a problem that Katie solved. So after a good amount of her long boring work, I give you:

Dizneuce Redux

Yep, my wife and cat go and I am soon to follow. Meaning every creature I am aware of with the last name "Baxter-Kauf" has a message like this on their original blog as we speak. Kinda sweet I spose. All the archives have moved and are now prolly kinda searchable. Also sweet. Hippo approves, since Katie did some consulting for her too.

Peace,

MB-K

For You I Know I'd Even Try To Turn the Tide, Because You're Mine, I Walk the Butt

2005-11-19T17:56:00.000-05:00

We've had an incredibly ridiculously normal suurban weekend. Since there was no debate tournament we got to avoid spending our Friday-Sunday driving vans full of college students to college towns in the NorthEast and butchering pop-culture philosphy in relation to human rights questions, and instead, go on a date of sorts. I'm generally a very chill-at-home sort of guy. We have tivo and hbo/showtime as well as pay per view, so I don't need to go to movies for enjoyable entertainment. I think the fact that I spend so many weekends in various Econolodges and other meh-ish motel chains means that I want to enjoy my couch and remote control when I get the chance. Still, the upcoming holidays encouraged us to leave Hippo by herself for a Friday night.

The stage for that evening began to be set the night before, when Thursday ushered in our first lake-effect snowstorm of the season. It was beauftiul and sunny when I left the house for class on Thursday morning, around 8. The radio began to read a list of schools that were closed and I literally laughed out loud, assuming it was a joke based on the uncharacteristically mild fall-winter season we've had. Apparently though, as the cars in the UB parking lot testified, about 10 miles South of school, it was coming down in sheets. Every school in the "Southtowns" had been closed, as well as at least some of the community colleges in the downtown Buffalo area. It was apparently 6-ish inches of blowing snow since midnight, so nothing to scoff at. The band of precipitation didn't hit us until late that afternoon as Hippo and I plugged away at our analysis of "Kant avec Sade." I know that snow can be annoying, it can cause bad driving conditions, slow you down, etc. But fundamentally, I kinda like the snow. It looks cool and generally makes even pointlessly ugly parts of landscape fairly pretty.

I had to go in for a lecture on Friday, a very good one actually, though the turnout was less than I would have imagined. After some cleaning and grooming and the like, we left home around 6:30 on our way to the Red Lobster. I know RedLob is far from fine cuisine, but they do rock the unlimited shrimp boat pretty hard and I was in an all you can eat shrimp sort of mood. While I admit that their cocount shrimp is fundamentally no better than anyone else's coconut shrimp, their dipping sauce has a sweetness that no other one in my experience can match. Its like shrimp frosting, delicious. We were keeping up the long-standing Baxter-Kauf tradition of seeing Reese Withersppon movies on opening weekend, so we braved the Harry Potter crowds to see Walk the Line.

I had predicted that it was a good night to go to a movie that wasn't Harry Potter, and I was really dead on. a number of great things ensued: 1) our neighborhood Regal theater has an ATM/ticket buying machine in the lobby, which I adore. I just choose my movie and the number of tickets, run my card through, and it spits them to me. I have no idea why people were waiting in line for a teller when two of these machines were wide open on the side of the lobby, but as long as morons continue to populate Western New York by the assload I will take advantage. My only thought is that people were actually buying their movie tickets with cash. I think that the use of cash at virtually any establishment which isn't a bar or a hot dog cart is pretty ridiculous these days and although the Buffalo/Lockport area has improved drastically since I've been here, I'm still blown away by the idea that there are businesses that don't use them. Anyway, the good thing was simply that I got to skip by the line and buy tickets from a machine. 2) The lobby was divided in two: half for the Harry Potter fanboys/girls and half for the rest of us. That meant we got our own concessions with really short lines, we didnt have to stand with the people dressed as Dumbledore, and didnt have to interact with all the children up way past their bedtime. Seriously, the popcorn challenge in the HP pen was probably 5-10 minutes, I had one person in front of me. They were jammed in shoulder to shoulder and some of them had without question been there for an hour or more. 3) Our theater was way less full than a movie with this kind of buzz should be on an opening Friday. I don't think the movie is gonna have any problems, but at least some of the crowd was probably deterred by the snow and the over-representation of wizards. I could put my feet up on the seat in front of me, my jacket on the seat beside me, and not worry about anyone finding the necessary amount of seats. This was a 9:00 show too, I might add, not exactly out of primetime.

Unrelated to the Harry Potter situation, but still awesome, was the movie itself. I expected good things, especially since I am a fan of both Johnny Cash and bio-pics. I had read good things, since Katie had directed me towards a couple solid reviews. Still, I was very impressed. Joaquin Phoenix is legitimately incredible, with both quality acting and incredible singing. I mean, really, dude is legitimately good in addition to sounding an incredible amount like Johnny Cash. Going for the music alone would not be a poor choice. There are even a couple scenes where the camerawork and editing were brilliant and unexpected. Some of the things Katie read suggested that Phoenix was overshadowed by Reese Witherspoon's work as June. Her voice was good, a really hawt Southern twang, and she's good in the role. But on no level that I was aware of could she be said to outshine Wah-keen. Regardless, you should go see Walk the Line.

This morning I felt like Frank the Tank, when I woke up and Katie and I decided to run some errands. We had to go to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, the grocery store, maybe Bed Bath and Beyond. I don't know, I don't know if there'll be enough time. Seriously though, it was totally suburban couple-dom par excellence, buying shelving at the Home Depot, ice-scrapers and gravy seperators, and having lunch at Panera. I don't think I'm risking the little bit of indie-cred I had in the first place by confessing to all this. But maybe I should listen to Lifter Puller or something, just to be safe.

Hippo and Katie are napping on the couch at the moment, so I can't pretend that Hippo is demanding I go and play. I can, however, simply turn my attention back to the Iron bowl. Hippo does love her SEC football.

Peace,

MB-K

Raw Metaphysically Bold, Never Followed a Code, Still Dropped a Butt

2005-11-17T21:42:00.000-05:00

I am thinking that the crew at the Colbert Report has the same challenge creating a new intro that uses the word truth every day as I have with my blog. Of course, they're daily and I am semi-weekly at best. At the same time, I'm much more restrictive about where the word itself fits in the whole thing. It can only replace a one syllable word and has to come at the end of a lyric, prolly stuff that is patently obvious. I don't really have the same sarcastic self promotion comedy bit down Colbert style, but maybe I will start working on it.

Last weekend featured two different debate tournaments: Wake and UMass. The former is a the season's biggest tournament, is long, complicated, stressful (I would imagine), and filled with the best teams in the country. The latter is one of the smallest tournaments of the year, elongated on Saturday but generally concise, the most laid back thing this side of napping on a Sunday afternoon, and essentially having only novice and junior varsity teams. Since neither Ken, Gordie, or myself, had any desire to make our way to North Carolina, Katie took a hit for the team with the top two teams and the rest of us rolled to Amherst, Mass. We made killer time on a beautiful day, arriving before 8:00 at the most expensive Howard Johnson in the country. We hung out with some folks from Vermont, watched a good amount of The Wizard of Oz on TBS, cut some cards, blah blah blah. Saturday's rounds didn't start until 8:30, which gave us a nice respite. Leaving the hotel at 7:45, rather than 7:00 on the dot, makes a huge difference.

Besides all those qualities I also got to see Maggie, who came down with a JV team from Dartmouth. It was actually half an open team and a raw novice, but you get the point. I haven't really talked to her at all since Blake last year, but I always enjoy trading stories of high school and onwards. Thats not even to mention the fact that having her around gave my teams the chance to be judged by her and consequently get an rfd from someone I respect without any reservations. There are a number of people in this region I conditionally think is a good judge, people who can comment on at least some things with authority, whose comments and/or decisions are probably more accurate marks of what happened in the round than the debaters, for instance. There are probably even a couple whom I cannot imagine disagreeing with, but I just haven't known them for that long or had anywhere near enough discussions with them. I haven't coached Maggie for 5 years now and I'm not trying to simply be a "great, late elims at the NDT debater=great judge sort of person, but I have confidence that she will give my students comments pretty near to the same ones I would have provided, which is invaluable when I'm among the only ones who doesn't start the RFD with "I usually think topicality is evil." We talked during lunches and breaks and the like, she also came over to our HoJo on Saturday night.

Outside of Maggie and the less than difficult schedule, the weekend was still alright. We had alot of people debating for the first or second time, alot of others debating a division higher than they are used to. Still managed to clear half the teams we brought, including the wonder novice squad in their first tournament as JVers and a 6-0 JV team. The drive home was just as easy as the trip out, but with a decent conversation amongst the Merk, Heroin, and myself. Nicknames on the squad have progressed a little bit over the past couple weeks, but a substantial portion of the team is still referred to by their first name. It just doesn't seem right for a team atmosphere, maybe I'm still stuck in sports mode or something, but I don't think I called anyone who hung out in the Loo by their Christian names either. Gordie's analysis, that every squad needs at least a Sparky and a Pepper, really rings true for me. Pepper just hasn't fit with anyone as well as Strategery or Team Crack+Smack, still half a year to go.

OMG aim has launched these two stupid bot things that you can ask questions of and get movie and shopping info. Its especially stupid because its less convenient than just going to any of a million websites that contain the same information in better packaging and easier to search functions, but that is beyond the point. The point is that I was playing around saying rude things to the bots and seeing how they might respond. First, I might note, it is humorous. Secondly, if you pretend that you are just talking to Andy and type the word "balls" you get two movie hits: Balls of Fury and Guys and Balls. I will see these movies just for their titles. Without question. One is a terrible looking film about ping pong, which does feature Lt. Dangle from Reno 911 and the other a German flick which appears to be a gay male romantic comedy. I was certain they were both pr0n until they showed up on imdb. If I was a movie producer I would simply insert the word balls into every title. It would be so awesome to have pre-built authority or responsibility without having to go through the whole "earning it" phase, cuz I have some awesome ideas.

Hippo appears to have an awesome idea of her own: stop typing on your blog and get my freaking bag of catnip down from the cupboard.

Peace,

MB-K

Time Doesn't Wait, It Will Only Accelerate, As the Days and the Months, and the Years Go Butt

2005-11-16T23:23:00.000-05:00

I should probably finish up the whole Eugene thing, since its been weeks since I came back. I'm not gonna detail every moment of the trip, since I don't remember them that specifically and it would bore you even more than the regular blog reading thing. We had good times at a couple bars: one was a lesbian joint that which Sanjay did not realize was a lesbian joint until the night he entered it sober, the other notable one was Max's, which apparently is the inspiration for Moe's tavern on the Simpsons. It certainly does have similarities in terms of the rough set up of the bar and is at least cited by several online sources as the inspiration. Wikipedia disagrees while Maxim argues that it is at least partially responsible. Regardless, we had a couple beers. Andy also convinced me to play erotic memory on the Touch Maxx bar video game thing, which I endulged since he was driving and not drinking at all. Not to mention that I fucking wasted him at it, cuz I have a way better erotic memory. Other brief mentions: ate breakfast at a pretty sweet hipster diner joint with great hashbrowns and biscuits and gravy, for the first time I successfully won a game of Risk based on the Siam at all costs strategy, came in 2nd to Jimmy in both poker tournaments we played, and tried a bunch of high quality local beers. My favorite was the Terminal Gravity IPA, a tasty hoppy beer with a pretty dark finish. The beer selection at just the grocery store was incredible, it made the Tops out here, a store probably 3 times the size of the market we were in, look like a case of Bud Light and a couple 40s of IceHouse. Not that its much more than that anyway, but you get the drift. There were probably 30+ various ales that I had never tried in just this cooler, so I can't imagine what the really "great" beer selections in Oregon look like.

On Sunday afternoon, sometime after both the Vikings and Packers had their weekly losses solidly in the bag, we jumped in Andy's car for a trip down to the Oregon coast. It was actually the first time I had ever been to the Pacific Ocean. We walked out onto these jettys, and by jettys I mean big piles of rocks that extend a ways into the ocean. We had a good time out there, but I could not in any way make it out all the way to the end. At some point we got from "rocky ground" to just "big rocks stacked on one another." I could probably have gone all the way out, given a bunch of time, more suitable clothing, and less fear of death. At some point though, I decided to stop. I have never been the most co-ordinated of gentlefolk and it would have surprised me not at all had I fallen, smashed my head open and/or twisted the hell out of my ankle. I stopped not only in the interest of my health, but in the interest of the near impossibility of my getting back to the car in the event of such a situation. Regardless, it was a beautiful afternoon, even without the sun. There were some crazy fools surfing just beyond one of the largest beaches I've personally ever seen. The drive there had been directly through the mountains and I really can't explain how much I like the combination of mountains and water. If I have to spend my life outside Minnesota I would drastically prefer it to be somewhere with those elements.

We had our best food that night at the Bridgewater Restaurant, right on the coast. Sanjay had a delightful Halibut Parmesan while Andy opted for the traditional but still delightful fish and chips. I myself took advantage of my geography to chow down on some grilled oysters. Andy didn't appreciate their freshness and oceany flavor, but I loved it. We had a full dinner, with some tasty dessert, a couple drinks and so on. The clam choweder was also great, especially the bowl we got covered with cheese and peppers. It wasn't the best chowder I have ever eaten, but its certainly the best I've eaten outside of Massachusets. We still managed to get back to the apartment before the West Wing started and got to catch the Bills blow a late game lead to the evil Pats. The flight home was alright, though it had to go through both freaking Cincinnati and Atlanta. The Portland airport has free WiFi, while parts of Atlanta don't appear to have access at all, which seems impossible for an airport that size. I had tasty chili in Cinci, at the Gold Star, a chili joint which I had seen on the food network a while back. They wanted very much to refer to it as "Cincinnati style chili" since it is served on spaghetti. I was cool with their use of the terms "Three way, Four Way, and Five way" though I snickered as I read the menu. But growing up in a family that was at least half Wisconsin born and bred, chili on spaghetti is just chili. Maybe its the same thing Chicago style hot dogs if you are from the Windy city, I don't know.

I was having a discussion the other day about how I think every significant sized city in the country should be required to develop its own specialty food. It just makes travel and eating so much easier when you are out of town. It can be really easy if you have some sort of proximity to where specific foods are grown or made or harvested or whatever that would work fine, if not, just choose something and run with it. Its not like they raise special cheesesteak cattle in Philly for God's sake. You could pretty much just choose your favorite sandwich, build some carts to scatter on important street corners, and convince local restaurants to start braggin that they have the best. Even if they don't, to start with, give any area with 100,000 or more people the desire to build the best tuna salad and you will probably end up with some freaking delicious sandwiches. Every city doesn't even have to have a unique food, Chicago and New York both claim pizza and hot dogs after all. It would just make regional travel way cooler if I knew that I was looking for the best corn dog in Amherst, Massachusets or could count on a great batch of waffles in Ithaca.

Regardless, at the end of my descriptions of the trip to Eugene I wanted to add a public shout out to Andy and Sanjay, as well as Sarah, for the comfort and the great times. Hippo wanted to add that she enjoyed having the house to herself but would appreciate my bag being spiked with catnip before I came home.

Peace,

MB-K

Paid My Dues, In the Mood, Me and The Girls Gonna Shake the Butt

2005-11-06T23:43:00.000-05:00

I should start this discussion by noting that the Packers suck. I am aware of that fact, fully aware, and have been saying as such even before the season. Losing your first three runningbacks doesn't help, along with half your o-line and a couple receivers. Those things are neither here nor there however, since my point is merely this: we are precisely just a little bit worse than whomever we play in a given week. Brett played pretty well this week, though his stats don't reflect it. 200 odd yards and an INT isn't hideous (its more passing yards then the Bills starter has recorded in almost 2 seasons, a fact the local sports rubes attribute even more laughability to then I do) especially when you consider that the interception literally bounced off Driver's hands. It was a first down that hit him dead on and in stride before he bumped it into the air volleyball style for the Steeler's secondary. Brett didn't play perfectly, coughed up a fumble that was returned for a touchdown and threw an incomplete pass when he could have easily run for a first down. Those are both things you have to live with when you play #4, they happen when you have a QB who is always shooting for the win. Still, we didnt get blown out by Pittsburgh, at times the defense even looked good, since 17 points came off turnovers, 7 didn't require an offensive play, and for another TD Charlie Batch only had to work a 25 yard field. It seems that whether we play the Vikings, who suck in approximately the same proximity as the Pack, or the Bengals, who look pretty legit overall, we play badly enough to come within a touchdown or so of the game. Anyway, I can't get too upset about the fact that we lost number seven when six were already down the tubes. At least I got to sit at home and spend the afternoon watching the foosball with my Katie and my kitty.

We just finished watching the live debate on the West Wing. Overall I am pretty impressed by the episode, both because of the way it was done (unscripted, Smits and Arkin studying briefing books and position papers to prepare) and based on the actual product they put out. To some extent the "lets forgo the rules and really debate" theme is a little too trite for Vinnick to bust out, but it was still interesting. I overall felt like, evaluating the debate on its own terms, Vinick won. From what I have heard it would only make sense for them to not decide who was supposed to win and let it develop as it might. I think that Alan Arkin is simply better and more forceful a person in his own right than Jimmy Smits. Santos' closing argument was far better and the arguments that he was winning he was pwnzing him on, still perceptually it just felt like he was behind. There are apparently rumors that whoever wins the poll after the debate was who NBC was going to have win the election, an argument that I think is obviously crap, you aren't that far behind on your storylines in mid November. I know the election isn't gonna take place next week or anything, but you can't stretch it out until March without any idea whats gonna happen. Not to mention, if the writers are so un-Sorkin like as to leave their storylines up to chance like this they don't deserve to end the series without jumping the shark. The great thing is that, they have an easy argument based on the reality of the last election to say that even if Santos gets destroyed in the debate he can win the election. Anyway, as Ihave been saying, I am a sucker for gimmick episodes. I loved it when the West Wing did "A Day in the Life of CJ", I like all the temporally fucked up episodes they've done on Buffy, Dawson's Creek, West Wing and others. Sucker, right over here.

Back to Eugene, I suppose, I should return, but only for a couple quick notes. Andy and I went to LCC on Thursday morning for the presentation itself. I felt good about my speech, though I'm not sure anyone besides Andy really felt what I was talking about. Thats not to say there weren't smart people involved, both the mayor and the PoliSci professor Andy had invited seemed to be on top of their respective games. The student was kind of weird and did end his speech by essentially saying that we should help the homeless because it looks good on a college application, but overall it was a decent conversation on a complicated topic. Andy and I had a good convo with the professor guy after the lecture and I think he may be even more conspiratorially inclined than I am. There were only really two hilarious parts of the morning: 1) Andy's cell phone went off as he was giving the opening remarks which made his authority oh so much more convincing to his assembled student body. Secondly, we stopped on our way to the lecture to pick up food and beverages for the speakers. Andy bought a decent selection of donuts, some pastries, and some bagels and shmear. He had a specific drink order from the student and I had him buy me a Starbucks DoubleShot. Besides that he assembled random beverages from the drink area, including a Snapple Peach Ice Tea, some Minute Maid Lemonade, a Sobe, and Diet Rockstar. It was freaking hilarious to me to offer the Mayor of Eugene (with all the prestige and power such a title confers) a Diet Rockstar or a bottle of Sobe. When the Mayor asked him for a bottle of water he was only able to come back with one of the above and even he could laugh about how ridiculous that situation was.

Other hilarious story. Sanjay is at a bar, waiting for a drink. Some guy is standing next to him and doesn't like, for one reason or another the cut of his jib. So he turns to Sanjay and says "Did you win the lottery?" Sanjay has gotten some bad vibes from this guy and responds with a slightly antagonistic swagger. He says "Does it look like I won the lottery?" The guy responds, I shit you not, with the line that I have adapted to nearly everything I have said to Sanjay since "Does it look like I'm asking, A-rab?" Seriously, who says A-rab, outside of maybe the high school debaters referenced by Natalie? Maybe its an opportune time for INS guy to make a comeback.

Katie and I rearranged the living room a bit last night and Hippo has been somewhat confused about where to sit all day. She has been alternating between Katie's laptop and the windowsill all day, but now looks in a mood to play in her persian kittenish fashion. I cannot even express how cute she is when attempting to determine whether she can make the jump onto the console table. She stands on her back legs like an ewok and tries to see what is there before she leaps. Better safe than sorry. Regardless, I have to grab her crackly fish toy before she attacks my leg in retribution.

Peace,

MB-K

I'm The Luckiest Guy, On The Lower East Side, I've Got Wheels, and You Wanna Go For a Butt

2005-11-04T01:52:00.000-05:00

Landed in Portland and got picked up by Andy and Sanjay in a car belonging to their friend Jimmy. Jimm'y s a really sweet guy, he hung out with us pretty much every night when I was in town. Dude's got a gambling problem and an unhealthy obsession with men with monosyllabic names, but a sweet guy without question. It was totally awesome that he let us use the car btw, since it would have blown to ride the 2 hours from Portland in the back of Andy's mid-80s Camry. While the Pac Northwest at least has Jack in the Box, and can hence claim one measure of civilization beyond Western New York, it has not been well graced by the Krispy to the Kree-ame so we made our way to the closest one to Eugene in the Western suburbs of Portland, I think. Jimmy, Oregon boy that he is, had never had a Krispy Kreme donut. I felt horrible that he did not get to experience it while the hot light was on, but check this out: THE PORTLAND KRISPY KREME IS NOT 24 HOURS!!! We got there about 30 minutes before it closed and the ordering process was a disaster, since Andy kept insisting on selecting random donuts despite sitting in the backseat, not being in condition to reasonably order donuts, and yelling over everyone. There was also a significant dispute over how many bottles of milk were required and some moments which bordered on Tenacious D at the drive-thru. Sanjay for some reason reacted to this nonsensical explosion by ordering half a dozen of our assortment to be Raspberry Filled Glazed donuts, which, in my mind should be illegal. We did buy 3 full dozen that evening, so I got my share of the Original Glazed that I wanted (fundamentally there is no other Krispy to the Kre-ame in my world).

We spent the parts of the drive back that were not crammed with donuty goodness making fun of Sanjay's I-Pod. Not becasue there is anything wrong with Sanjay's I-Pod, but Andy had informed me that Sanjay is really pissed at the Nano because everyone wants it and so his favorite toy (the big I-Pod) is not considered as cool, though he insists it is better in every way shape and form. If you are ever in a conversation with Sanjay, ask him how he can even walk when he is carrying that gigantic tank of a music player, wouldn't it be easier to just carry a boombox on your shoulder like a stereotyped breakdancer on a Fat Albert cartoon or something. There are moments from the trip to Oregon that simply aren't appropriate for public discussion, but believe me when I say they were awesome. We partied for a little while on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and I didn't get to sleep until somewhere around 4:30 AM.

When Andy reads this, if he ever does, he will inevitably get pissed that I am making fun of him. I have attempted to elide this complaint by first mentioning a funny story about making fun of Sanjay and second, by intedning to include all the positive impressive things Andy has been up to. That said I am going to make fun of Andy on occassion, there are just too many good stories. For one, Andy has like 4 alarm clocks requiired to wake him up. There were at least 5 total alarms between the various clocks and cell phones he set the night before. He did manage to get up and get going the following day at least, but returned home sometime in the afternoon and canceled his class. If you havent been in college for a while, you may have forgotten that this is something proffessors do, its one of the good parts of our gig. Its not high school and sometimes other shit gets in the way. This is not funny. The funny thing is that one of ANDY'S STUDENTS CALLED HIM ON THE PHONE AND CHEWED HIM OUT FOR CANCELING CLASS. I cannot imagine what I would even say if one of my students told me that I was not allowed to determine whether or not class would take place. Not to mention, who gets mad cuz their class is canceled. I mean, yeah, it can be kind of frustrating to get something done in time and then find out you didnt need to put in the extra work, but still. Maybe I'm the only one who loved it when you'd show up, assuming you were condemned to an hour or two of boing ass French lecture, for instance, and then realize that you had 2 free hours. If you want you can do your work, its bonus time. If not, you hadn't planned on gettting anything done then anyway, so there is no loss.

Hippo is, despite my assurances to the contrary, content in her belief that the cords to my computer are attacking her and as a result she has deployed her vicious finsihing move the "Multi Paw Hippo Fire" against them. Before she chews her way into my hard drive, I am gonna go play.

Peace,

MB-K

And I Guess That's Why They Call it the Butt

2005-11-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

Been a long time, been a long time, been a long busy travlin etc. time. I said hey right before West Point, so I will pick up with a brief description of that weekend, In some ways there is not a tremendous amount I can add from my previous descriptions of the beauty that is the Hudson River valley in the fall. I mean, its incredible, the colors are magnificent, the river is perfect at that point, and the campus, despite the occassionally pain-inducing severity of the architecture, is actually quite lovely. This was the first year I have ever actually driven to this tournament, since we rode Rochester's coach bus the past couple years. Thankfully it wasnt snowing, cuz I really got my rented minvan trucking on those downslopes.

OMG I have to make a brief sidenote about the worst minivan in the history of civilization, which, not surprising, I was driving on this particular weekend. It was supposedly, a brand new, Kia Sorento. I can testify that it was indeed a Kia Sorento but it appeared to me to be from somewhere in the mid 80s. Sure it was somewhat shiny and blue and crisp outside, but inside everything was analog, it lit up with a dull green glow and the radio, I swear to God, was slightly less sophisticated than the one in the Corsica I drove in high school. The gray plastic panels just refused to seem new and the fucking shift lever was in the middle of the front panel exactly where my knee rests when I put on the cruise control. The car might, and I emphasize might like a South Dakota novice policy debater on a solvency flow, have been designed by a blind monkey. It was a horrible horrible minivan and I think that the Enterprise Rent-A-Car was taking a chance at my death, but regardless we got back in a reasonable amount of pieces and the like.

We had a fairly successful tournament, clearing 4 of our 6 teams, losing in octos, quarters, quarters, and finals. I judged all but one of the rounds but had Saturday's last prelim off and managed to drive around and find the Catholic chapel on the West Point campus and went to mass on Saturday evening. It was a really pretty old building, not large or elaborate but beautifully done and positioned a level or two above the rest of the campus on the hillside. Perfectly timed to, so I got to investigate, go to church, drive a little bit longer, and was still back in time to greet Ken's arrival and catch the kids coming out of round 6. I was hella tired, we got back hella late, had some nonsense with certain debate programs I'm not gonna mention, but all around a good time. The car ride back featured excessive discussion of laced Eggs Benedict, which was way funnier than it currently sounds.

We got home and didnt have a tremendous amount of turnaround time before Katie and I began our journeys for that particular week. We got to spend Monday recuperating and enjoying each other's company in the absence of hotel rooms, debate rounds, and so on. We had a nice dinner, didn't cook though, and we probably should have tried to break up the monotony of fast and otherwise prepared meals that dominates one's schedule in the abscence of a kitchen. Regardless, it was a very good day, followed by a pleasant evening, and a bright, but early morning.

Andy had booked my ticket through whatever crazy ass travel agent he is required to use by Lane Community College and the ticket she finagled was among the worst itineraries in all of history. At first glance it appeared that I was flying from Buffalo to Hotlanta, and Hotlanta to Portland. Thats not bad, you can't expect to get non-stop flights from an airport as small as BUF to the other side of the country. Closer inspection revealed that the flight from Buffalo to Hotlanta stopped in Detroit. Yep. Not only did they make me fly west, before flying south and east, to again fly north and west; not only did they put a 50 minute break, for no apparent reason, in the middle of my day, they made me get off the damn plane. I was perfectly content to sit with my computer, my Nintendo DS and my enormous novel by Norman Mailer, doing whatever I needed to while waiting for them to reload. I even mentioned that I would be happy to move to a seperate part of the plane if they had to clean row 14 and put new copies of SkyMall in the seat back pockets. Nope, had to literally leave the aircraft and walk around the DTW terminal for 25 minutes before they let me board again. I watched their giant screen TVs and poked around in a shop that catered to cat and dog lovers. Still, it was a bit infuriating.

Had to sit in the Hotlanta airport for closer to two hours, but there was a comfortable bar near my gate where I could watch Sportscenter, the opening moments of the world series, and have nachos and whiskey, a classic combination if ever I've heard one. It turned out that the three people sitting next to me at the bar were all on my flight as well and my initial optimism that the plane might be undercrowded was put in momenary jeopardy. I got pleasantly intoxicated for a reasonable price and hopped on the plane. I should back up to one of the people who was sitting with me at the bar however, cuz she was the drunkest person I have ever seen actually fly on an airliner. When she showed up in the bar she already sounded drunk, but since she was just off a previous plane and wandering into the bar, I decided to assume that this was just the way she was. I should note that my experiences with this woman were fairly limited, between 7:45 Eastern and 10:55 Pacific, so maybe she is like this all the time, but at this particular moment, she was drunk. She hit on our incredibly unattractive bartender. After sitting there for approximately 15 minutes, in a fairly smoky room (since it is also the ATL smoking lounge), surrounded by people sucking down their Marlboro Lights, she exclaimed "I can smoke in here?!?!" This would be a somewhat tolerable thing to do except for the fact that she followed it up by 10 minutes later exclaiming in exactly the same voice "I can drink in here?!?!" Maybe you could write that off as a funny joke or something based on her not remembering to drink her beverage despite its sitting there for however long. Each one, however, was repeated at least two more times, including one while she was holding a still burning cigarette. She had a tall beer, a rum and coke, and two lemon drops in my sight, though I left the bar about 5 minutes before she did. I was certain that this lady would never get on the plane, but about 30 seconds before they closed the aft doors she comes a-stumbling in.

There was no body on the plane, maybe 25 of us for the whole plane. I don't remember precisely what kind of plane it was, but a big one with two aisles and 9 seats per row. No one in the aircraft sat in the same set of seats as anyone else and while I didnt' even attempt to sleep during the flight, it would have been money to stretch out on accross the whole situation. I had decided to characterize my trip to Eugene as a vacation, so I decided that my commencing of drinking signaled the end of my working for the day, so I ordered a beer on the plane and sat back to watch the movie: Batman Begins. I was a little surprised they would show this movie on the plane, though I was totally psyched to watch it again. It was less good on the small screen and even less good given the editing applied by the airline to make it acceptable for all ages. Still, its a decent flick and kept me busy for 2 hours. They followed that up with an episode of Nightline and some other crap that I didnt watch before they got to Bewtiched reruns and the Travel Channel's list of Top Ten Ballpark Foods. The final item was cut off after Wrigley field so we could get off the plane and all, but I appreciated the effort.

The trip has a multitude of stories in itself, but I figure I will convince myself to go in manageable batches. Not to mention, Hippo has been very excitable since I got home and is ready to play with some cat toys. OMG, Katie ordered checks with Hippo's picture on them today. Absent the presence of the fluffy Ms. Hipp herself, they are the cutest things ever.

Peace,

MB-K

Listened to Preachers I've Listened to Fools, I've Watched all the Dropouts Who Make their Own Butt

2005-10-16T18:39:00.000-04:00

Do you think the Viking's sex cruise tired out Smoot too much to play defense? I did not see the epic confrontation with the Bears today, but 28-3 is not the type of score you want in your journey towards putting a floating sex party scandal to bed. Hehehehe, putting a sex scandal to bed. Though I suppose if they would have used beds instead of renting boats on Lake Minnetonka, none of this would have ever come out. I mean, the sex toys prolly still would have come out and if you are paying in the six figure range for les prostitutes, you figure one of them might let the word get out, but still. Even the Vikings organization might have to consider getting rid of Mike Tice at this point, though they are only a game out of first place in the NFC North.

Packers have the bye week, so I have the great and unadulterated pleasure of relaxing at home today and watching football in my living room, rather than having to run to the Casino or whatnot. This is not to say that I don't enjoy those excursions, simply that I like relaxing on the couch, with my kitty and my Katie, and watching the Bills. Shockey got me 18 points in their contest with the Dallas Cowboys, so I was pleased, even though I think it may have given Buddy a brief heart attack with the last second touchdown in regulation, worked out alright for his evil team anyway. We also got to see the spanking (kinky) that the Dolphins took from the Bucs, I suppose because of the AFC East thing around these parts. Ricky did not play enough to hold my attention, maybe he needed a bong rip on the sidelines.

I got up at 5:30 yesterday morning and drove out to Rochester, NY, for the New York College English Associations fall conference on "Literature and the Obscure." I was presenting on one of the morning's first panels, so I had to be there by 8:00 or so. I was pleased with my argument and its reception. There were about 15 people in the room for the panel I was on, which was a pretty decent showing. I was shocked by how well the papers all worked together, especially given their often less than descriptive titles. Most of the rest of the day was alright, interesting but not worth reporting on, with the exception of some of the lunch convo. There was a nice luncheon situation involved, institutional food, but banquet style decent institutional food. I was sitting at a table with the only other dude who was within about 5 years of my age and assorted other people with whom I had no connection. A couple of them worked at Buffalo-area communitiy colleges, a couple others at private schools throughout the state. None of them worked at any institution of significant prestige, and I say that not to diminish these people as scholars (whom I know nothing about) nor to piss on their institutions (since I know little about them as well and in no way think that these few teachers are in any way representative). The thing that shocked me, and the only reason I mention where they were from, was that they were ridiculously pompous and entirely dismissive of anyone who was not essentially a highly devoted English major. Over the 40 or so minutes that the table was making small talk (from when we sat down to the beginning of the keynote speaker) these people diminished: athletes (most notably football players, but baseball, soccer, and basketball all got time in as well), engineers, physicists, less than perfect students, undecided majors, and film studies. Thats not even to mention that the one oldish dude who was the most cockassy was visibly disturbed when he learned that I studied primarily psychoanalysis and 20th Century American literature--it appeared that given his specialties of Milton and Shakespeare that he was not of the opinion that much of the 20th Century counts as "literature" but maybe I was reading too much into it.

I just find it particularly obnoxious when people, of any sort, not just academics, get so damn wrapped up in what they do that everything else becomes worthless and beneath them. I am cool with you not likign football, thats your loss. But a back-up NFL running back will make more money, be better known, and most likely accomplish more in their short career than you will in your 30 plus years of intellectually whacking-it. Thats not to say that I don't see the value in studying Shakespeare or Milton (who I personally find incredibly boring), but simply that if you want to talk about which one is better by any objective measurement, professional sports have got you powned. Its surprising to me, the people I know or have worked with who tend to be from way more "prestigious" institutions (again, not that I provide any significance to such measurements, simply noting them) are almost never this intellectually exclusionary. Maybe it has to do with an interiority complex, but I really hate resorting to such cheap psychologism.

I'm just over a week away from leaving on my trip to Eugene, Oregon, the furthest West this Midwestern son has ever been. I've got a week's wotth of school and a trip to West Point in between my and the closes thing I have had to a vacation in quite a while. Its pretty weak that my vacation doesn't include Katie, but I think she's gonna be heading down to Harvard anyway. Wonder if she needs to get her hair highlighted? Hippo says that she would be happy to accompany me, but I think a night in Sanjay and Andy's apartment would convince her otherwise. Besides, she is a first class kind of persian, and my ticket is coach at best.

Peace,

MB-K

And We Can Ride the Boogie, Share That Beat of Love, I Wanna Rock With You, All Butt

2005-10-13T00:57:00.000-04:00

I have been a combination of busy and sick for the past little while and as a result not posting and the like. I think I got through the Buffalo tournament, up until the point where we got home Sunday night, crashed for like 13 hours and were completely wiped the entirety of the next day. We did, at one point, have the chance to run to Target, where Katie bought me my birthday present. It is the totally sweet NINTENDO DS (to be read in the Cartman sense of SEGA DREAMCAST) and its greatest possible accompaniment Nintendogs. I have a really awesome Siberian husky named Jordis who is totally cool. She has learned how to sit, lay down, shake, and chase her tail on command. I can't even explain how cute it is. I'm gonna get a pug dog pretty soon here, but wanted to get the hang of the game first. So while they are delayed, I just wanted to send out a mad round of props to Katie for the present, which is awesome, and allows some video-based gaming on the often long and boring road to debate tournaments and the like.

Second thing of note: I ran to Wal-Mart the other day to pick some up some romance novels for Katie when she was not feeling well. Besides the fact that the photo lab now has a sweet machine that makes gift cards with any picture on the front (like Wal-Mart cash present gift card things) there was one thing really out of place. Parked next to me in the Wal-Mart parking lot, on Saturday afternoon, when every store in the world was open, was a brand new Bentley. Seriously, a car that potentially costs multiple hundreds of thousands was shopping for something at the cheapest of cheap ass locations. I understand that people who are rich get that way by not spending money all the time on random shit, but if you can afford even thinking about a Bentley its time to move up to Target full time.

We have watched alot of TV to make up for the tremendous lack of televisual moments that occurred between Kings and Buffalo. I'm up to date on Lost and Desperate Housewives, both of which I am happy to report, have not yet jumped the shark. While the basic satirical form of Desperate Housewives will prolly always leave it teetering on the edge, Lost appears to be going as strong as ever, now that everyone has determined like I did last year, that the show should be primarily about Locke. Jack's important and all, but without the incredible moments of Locke's feelings about the island the show would prolly end up meh at best. My three favorite new shows so far are Surface, Threshold, and Extras, the first two being pretty radically distinct from the last. Surface and Threshold are somewhat in the vein of Lost, at least insofar as the takeoff of odd mystery shows represents. I spose they also have a bunch in common with shows like The 4400. Surface also prolly connects with my childhood obsession with the Loch Ness monster, which I studied and wrote papers about for no specific reason for a while. I am still way behind on Rome and Invasion but I am happy for both. The disappointments, as of yet, are pretty limited, but two episodes in Commander in Chief is a not good program. I will give Geena Davis a couple more full weeks in office, but she is a pretty craptacular president thusfar.

Packers won big, it was a crazy awesome occassion, let me tell you. I'm not gonna equivocate like the NFL Live folks and think that the fact that we are only one win behind the Lions means that we have the chance to turn the season around, we're still a 6-10-ish team that just happened to encounter the perfect point-scoring storm in Lambeau field last Sunday. Brett Favre gets 3 touchdowns without playing a down after 3:00 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter, a productive running game producing two rushing TDs, and (I can hardly believe I'm writing it) 14 points produced by the defense and a near shutout. We beat-up the Saints, not exactly the Cowboys of the early 90s I might add, who were playing with injured/weakened/whatever Deuce and Brooks. I'm not trying to diss on the Pack-Attack, since I loved it more than just about anyone not wearing shoulder pads and the number 4, but I don't think it changes anything about the quality of the team. I'm just gonna enjoy that win for what it was.

Both the Yankees and the Red Sox are out of the playoffs, so the sports world can't be all bad. I haven't ripped on the Yankees as much as I normally would, insofar as I now work with two rapid Yankee fans. Similarly, I coach enough rubes from the Red Sox Nation to not bother making fun of the chowds. Suffice to say, not having to listen to either camp brag in their obnoxious East Coast accents for the rest of the year is reason enough for me to tolerate baseball. I wasn't surprised that the Chi-Sox took down Boston, but must admit that the dumbest named team in the history of professional sports surpsised me by defeating Steinbrenner's lackeys.

I almost forgot to mention one of last week's most exciting endeavors. Katie and I took our Friday night off and pretended that we were a normal couple that didnt spend every weekend in a random NorthEastern EconoLodge, instead deciding to go out for a nice dinner. We headed to a place called Marinaccio's for dinner, though we had just happened upon it. It was a decent Italian joint, small but classy enough. Katie had a tasty piece of trout while I rolled for the seafood, goat cheese, and tomato-cream sauce deliciousness that was the Agnelotti Paolo. I've really had a thing for the Southern-Northern Italian mixemup represented by the tomato-cream sauce lately, just thought I would throw that out there.

Afterwards we hit up the real highlight of the evening though: Butterwoods Dessert Restaurant. I won't go through the history and what all of the place, you can read the website if you care. The point is this: its a restaurant that serves elaborate multi-course plated desserts. It has coffee and a bakery with incredible looking cookies, pastries, cakes and whatnot, but those are all in second. You'll never believe how much in second they are until I tell you this. Katie and I ordered two things to share this is my description of the one which was NOT the best: it was called The Belgian Chocolate Pyramid. It was presented with a stick of chocolate in the top, atop a fluffy bed of whipped cream and accompanied by a creme puff swan. It was beautifully presented, and I haven't yet explained the dessert itself. The pyramid shaped concoction was coated with a hard chocolate shell. Directly underneath that shell was a layer of mousse, thick, delicious, chocolatey mousse. All that was atop something that was somewhere between a brownie and a flourless chocolate torte. On any other night it would prolly have been the highlight of the evening. Instead it was served at the same time as the Apple Tarte Tartin. The dessert meals were almost a combo of tapas desserts or something, since there were 7 mini desserts included. Some of them are described on the menu, but there was far far more.

The dessert came on a large rectangular platter about 2.5 feet by 1 foot. From my perspective, this is what it contained: in the near right hand corner was the tartin for which the dish was named, a delightful baked apple concoction with layers of apples, cinnamon, and flaky pastry, served with a creamy caramel sauce. To its left was the marscapone creme brulee, something which is so self-obviously delicious that I refuse to explain it to you, topped with a cookie thing and a mini-scoop of creme fraiche ice cream. Further to the left was a sort of shaved apple ice, which had a specifc name I cannot possibly remember. It was flavored like apples and green tea and was apparently made by freezing an apple, shaving it into little chunks of ice, and flavoring those with some herbs and syrups and the like. Bordering on savory dessert, but wonderful. Behind it, the back left of the platter, was a half an apple, poached in a ginger syrup and served with sour apple sticks. Nextdoor was three full sized apple chips, standing upright in two other scoops of homemade ice cream, one banana and one ginger. Wonderful. The ultimate highlight was next, an apple tempura. Damn was it delicious. I fully intend to whip that up with some caramel sauce and ice cream at some point, or, as Katie suggested in her infinite brilliance, a caramel apple tempura pie. The final note in this apple composition was a green apple sorbet, so deliciously sour and cold. It was great, really truly great.

It was my first endeavour into the world of dessert restaurants, but I think Katie and I have defintively decided to make return trips to Butterwoods. There is a chocolate pistachio beignet just waiting for me to devour it. We are not sure about their pet policy, but Hippo has been meow-sisting that we take her since the moment we got home. I'm pretty sure that more than a couple bites would have doubled our petite kitty's weight, but when she gets an idea in her persian head, you know how it can be.

Peace,

MB-K

I Can't Live Without Your, Love and Affection, I Can't Face Another Night On My Butt

2005-10-05T23:48:00.000-04:00

After the grocery store we did Wal-Mart for some awards and then headed up to the Amherst area Motel 6 which was to serve as the tournament hotel. It really pisses me off that there continue to be hotels that do not have wireless internet of some sort. Don't get me wrong, I am pretty pissed when I have to pay for wi-fi, its just something I feel entitled to at this point, but at least there is an option for me. The Motel 6 was prolly the first hotel I had been in for quite a while that had no ability for high speed internet of any source. In order to cut the politics cards I needed I had to do lexis "downloads" for like an hour prior to my leaving. I put downloads in quotes there because my lack of a lexis code has forced me over to academic universe, which has no "download" capability. What I actually did was copy and paste articles one at a time into freaking word documents so I could read them later.

Regardless, Katie had to be there to send out pairings, work on the computer stuff, do early registration, and talk with the Buffalo kids in preparation for the first tournament of their season. I was sad that I had no access to my tivo, my couch, or my wireless, but we all make do. I didn't finish cutting the politix story until like 10:00 in the evening, but the evidence was pretty spectacular. I can't imagine the story will be that good come West Point, but we can always hope. I even got the impact story to play in the right direction. It was, admittedly, one of the moments I remembered what I like about coaching debate: finding a quality strategy, a good set of useful arguments, figuring out a way to smack somebody around. Anyway, in between those moments I talked with the Buffalo kids, ate another freshly baked cookie or two, and went to get dinner at a Thai restaurant down the road. The place was quality and was hella busy this particular Friday night, so I decided to wait outside the restaurant and talk on the phone while they got my curry, pad thai, and satay ready to go. Since I was as close to Asia as I was likely to get for a while, and my brother was not, I gave him a call.

As a potentially necessary piece of backstory: my brother has wanted to go to Asia, more specifically to Japan, for quite a while now. It has been his obsession in college, the language, the culture, the history, etc. I appreciate the history and art and most notably the food, but I've never had the intensity of the interest he did. Regardless, it turns out that there are enough young Americans with the same ideas about going to Japan as my brother that the process of getting a job and getting over there is kinda long and complicated. To make a long story short, he and Melia decided to go to Thailand in the meantime. They left this last Saturday night, flew from Chicago to Seoul, spent a day there, and then were on to Bangkok. My dad forwarded the email he sent upon his arrival, but besides that I don't have much to report. He is going to be living in a city called Loburi or Lopburi, though the information I've gathered about it online is pretty limited. They do have a pretty awesome monkey festival, which I am looking forward to seeing pictures of, but besides that I can tell you only that its a medium sized city in central Thailand. The point of all this was that I talked to my bro for about 45 minutes while waiting for my incredibly late dinner order and was able to catch up before he was on his way to O'Hare. I only saw him for a day or so this summer and before that not since Christmas. I don't know when I will see him again, but I just wanted to send good blog wishes to him and Melia. I think they are down in Phuket, on the coast, at this point, so prolly enjoying a much more interesting place than Buffalo has been recently.

Nothing else much occurred that night, since we went to sleep fairly early in an attempt to get up at 5:30 ish the following Saturday. We woke up to an especially playful Hippo for 5:30 am and were out of the house before 6:00. Our routine wasn't too horrible, we were at Manhattan Bagel before 6:10, I dropped Katie off and unloaded the car, then was on my way to the remaining breakfast related stops at Duncan Donuts, Tim Hortons, and Starbucks. All of these businesses had generously donated various delicisosities to the tournament cause, though Starbucks apparently employs a number of illiterate managers, since they were not prepared for which weekend we would be arriving--though it was clearly indicated on the letter. It took care of itself after only a little bit of discomfort on my behalf and we got our free coffee. The tournament got going on time, rounds progressed as planned, I got the chance to cut some cards on Army's affirmative, which ultimately helped us win a quarter's debate, even though there is work that still needs to be done on the counterplan. I digress, everything worked out well on Saturday, we got food there on time, cleaned up the room where it was served and accomplished 5 rounds.

Sunday morning was essentially the same routine. Up early, bagels, school, donuts, coffee, school. I managed to go the whole weekend without judging a debate,thank goodness for having Rochester teams in late elims I guess. We only managed to clear 4 out of our 13 teams, but 8 of those 13 were raw novices, so there was certainly nothing to be upset about. Two novice teams got out, a JV team that went 2-4 last week ended up 4-2 this week, losing a 4-1 round to end up as such--they ultimately lost in quarters. Buddy and Rohan had the weekend of their dreams, at least for this early in the season, 8th and top speakers, 5-1 with a loss to Case Western in prelims and victorious through the final round, ultimately beating Case on a 2-1 at the end. It was a hasty strategy that we put together, seeing as how I had not even looked at Case's odd Confuscianism/Empire aff, but I guess we had a thesis that we could sell to the panel in a more explainable sense then the aff. I told everyone that the debate would be decided based on who could more clearly articulate their alternative in terms that did not require an in-depth understanding of Hardt and Negri or whatever.

We also had, in that debate, a really odd situation where we managed to piss off a critic because he was not able to understand what was going on. From my understanding this came from the formal issues (i.e. speed and tech) and not the subject matter (Empire and Zizek). As an FYI, this Case team is high quality, they are smart, they are fast, and they are technically proficient. While the panel was not the fastest in history, two of them could keep up with most situations. Somewhere during the round, prolly going into the block, ROC decided that we were gonna get blown out of the debate if we didnt pick up the speed. Anyway, at some point a decision was made by both teams that one critic would have to get blown off for the sake of the other two. This isn't uncommon, I should note, its a decision we've all made as debaters and coaches, at least a couple times. If you've judged any decent amount of outrounds you've probably been blown off a panel at least once. That doesn't mean that you don't vote for whom you think you won and it doesnt mean that your vote won't be the deciding one when the teams split the two judges they were going for, it just means that to focus on winning you would have cost two ballots. I guess that my feelings about debate as a competitive activity first and foremost makes me a little more understanding of being blown off a panel than others are, but I simply don't get being pissed about it. Not only do I not get the mentality which refuses to see the competitive necessity behind it (emboddied in some aspect or another of every competition by the way, from the sac-fly, to taking a safety or penalty, to tripping a player on a breakaway) but I cannot imagine being pissed enough about it to rant within the context of the debate. Fundamentally, why do you care? It doesn't chance anything about your life, it doesnt effect your teams or the tournament, its just plain irrelevant. Either way you judge the debate, you vote for one team, you say why, and you go home. It actually makes the decision easier, cuz you have the absolute defense that the teams made no effort to win your ballot, so it was all but a random shot in the dark.

Again, that doesnt catch us back up to this moment. But I'm getting closer. Needless to say, Buddy and Rohan won the debate in question and I think the whole ROC staff was pleased to get our fist championship of the season out of the way so early. Hippo concurs, but wishes that instead of pressuring China, the topic consisted of petting Persia(ns).

Peace,

MB-K

I, I Love the Colorful Clothes She Wears, and the Way the Sunlight Plays Upon Her Butt

2005-10-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

Been a long time. It was, specifically, a time filled with a tremendous amount of crap. I will go briefly through the major events that have occurred from September 20th until this evening. I'm sure sme things will get filled in at different levels later on. Anywho.

A couple days after my last posting was the departure for Wilkes-Barre, King's College, and as such my return to the debate coaching ranks. All three were pretty decent experiences. I drove a mini-van full of college kids (full being a generous term) about 4 hours into the Pennsylvania valley. My van arrived first of course, so after checking in to the Holiday Inn and the like I managed to cut at least a couple pages of cards. Katie and I combined to put out 41 pages by the following day at 11:00, which included my contending with the old people in the tour group to get a couple waffles from the deluxe continental breakfast. While I recognize that not everyone spends as much time as I do in mid-level hotel breakfast areas, the inabiility to work a waffle iron with instructions clearly printed on the base makes you an idiot. Not only was this old chick a waffle-iron illiterate, but she had actually jumped in front of me in line. I ate a bowl of frosted flakes standing up behind her just to demonstrate how unhappy I was with the situation. I think my message was somewhat undercut by helping her to work the damn waffle machine, but I couldnt risk her trying to make another one when the first came out raw on one side and burnt on the other.

We coached some rounds, I judged a couple blah blah. We cleared 4 teams, two in jv, an open, and a novice. I didn't coach any of those in prelims, notably, but regardless. It was a pretty good showing for the first weekend of the season, of Ken's tenure as Rochester's DOF, and mine as a college debate coach. Drove back just barely in time to get my car from the rental joint and drive back to Buffalo. Hippo was very excited to see us, especially since she had gotten used to us not going out of town for 4 days every couple weeks. She jumped up onto Katie's lap, read some blogs and checked email with her, then meowed around the house for a little while. She really does enjoy the crisp fall air thats developing here in Buffalo, so the windows are of even more interest than they used to be. That got messed up yesterday afternoon when Katie and I decided to turn the air conditioning back on, in response to 80+ temperatures in the first week of October, but she digs a last taste of the human induced freeze for 2005.

The week that followed was pretty much all prep for the Buffalo tournament all the time. I got a good amount of work done on several of these days, finishing and sending off an article I had written on the premiere of CSI: NY and approaching completion on the paper I'm presenting in Rochester on the 15th. The dissertation hasn't gotten quite all the attention it deserves, but still working on the whole multi-tasking affair. Still on track, but a little sidebar for the week. Jonathon Culler, whose book On Deconstruction is really quite incredible, came to UB to speak on Thursday. His talk, which notably had a great title "The Most Interesting Thing in the World: Derrida and Literature" was pretty informative and admittedly did alot with material I am far from familiar with. If you ever get the chance you should drop by and hear him speak. He may end up being unfairly overshadowed by Jean-Luc Nancy's appearance in November, but the point being that it was good. In many ways it was a break from the avalanche of activity which was to come soon afterwards.

Friday was technically my birthday, though I am not quite sure why I inserted the word technically in there, since it was my birthday by all accounts. Katie was obviously more than slightly occupied by the tremendous amount of crap involved in running a debate tournament for 180ish people, but managed to make it a very happy day nonetheless. The first part was really quite wonderful by all accounts, as we left at 10:00 and drove out to the apple orchard to pick a bushel's worth of Cortland, JonaGold, and Crispin apples as tournament snacks. It was a beautiful fall morning, cool with a bit of a breeze and bright sunshine. We got some fresh baked cookies and were able to drive ourselves right into the orchard. The Crispins were not my favorite, but had a good balance of sweet and sour. The Cortlands were at the very end of their season, as the trees were nearly bare, but were incredibly sweet, like candy almost. The JonaGold's were incredible however, only a step away from the Golden Delicious which I adore. They were tart and delightful, so I think I ate at least 3 of them standing amongst the trees. Its a little ridiculous how odd an apple orchard feels, like I don't really cognitively understand that apples grow on trees until I am removing them from said trees and eating them directly. We only had that 30 or so minutes to enjoy the morning and then it was a mad dash towards Monday morning.

I will accomplish only one more event, and hence one more rant, on my attempt to blog at a reasonable pace. That one will involve the grocery store. We stopped at our friendly neighborhood LaPerna family Tops to pick up certain amounts of condiments and the like. Beyond just mustard and chips and such, we also had to purchase all the things which would ostensibly enable the vegan folks to "eat reasonably" for the weekend. That included vegan cream cheese, vegan cheese slices, soy milk, and possibly a couple other things I don't remember. My rant is simply this: I hate being considered a dirty hippy for dirty hippy elements I don't even subscribe to. I have no problem with people eating whatever it is they choose to eat, those choices, to my knowledge, have no impact on me at all. I can even understand not wanting to eat meat. What I don't really understand is the decision to not eat animal products for ethical reasons, but to eat things that "taste like" animal products. I recognize that it has no effect one way or the other, but it doesn't feel right. My obviously somewhat inaccurate analogy was that if you thought that killing people was wrong, but you really liked killing people, and they started making cloned psuedo-people whom you could kill and it would sort of seem like killing a real person, would you be killing them. I think the point in both situations is to confront the fact that there is something that you like which you shouldn't like, rather than to just find ways to eat it that don't hurt anything. I'm sure I would feel differently if I was a veggie, but pork, beef, and chicken taste good. Hippo agrees, though she would like to add that whatever additional ingredients are used to flavor Cat Chow are just as tasty as any prime rib.

Peace,

MB-K

California Here We Come, Right Back Where We Started Butt

2005-09-20T23:11:00.000-04:00

This was the final weekend that we were debate commitment free for the year 2005. I mean, there are other weeks that we don't have tournaments, but everything begins in two days when we officially embark on the voyage to King's College. Anyway, we took advantage to do some reasonable normal human things. We went, for instance, to the mall on Saturday for a mercifully brief bout of shopping and a viewing of Reese Witherspoon's new film. It was somewhat more interesting than I thought it would be and since I've resigned myself to seeing all Reese Witherspoon's romantic comedies anyway, it wasnt bothersome. There were some sad parts and all, but mostly just fluffy and humorous. I did however realize that the previews they show with these films are not at all directed towards me. The Iron Range sexual harassment film with Charlize Theron and Woody Harrelson was the one I was most likely to see and that one really only because it is set in Minnesota and has Woody himself. I wanted to see this animated flick about birds that they were showing a preview for but then it turned out that it wasn't really a movie but just a fake promo to tell people to turn their cell phones off.

The lack of football on Saturday (I mean, it wasn't a total lack of football, but less than the previous week for certain) set me up for a football explosion on Sunday afternoon. The bar where we watched the Pack last week was less than adequate, since it was totally lacking in food, had a beer selection slightly below that of Shenanigans and was somehow less comfortable then just standing up. While all the games were on, we had horrible sound and low quality televisions with small screens to boot. So you would imagine my excitement in discovering this fact: Casino Niagara has erected (hehehehe) a SPORTSBOOK!!!!! That is correct, sports gambling is now legal in Ontario, at least Niagara Falls. Meaning that about 30 minutes away, when you include the bridge into Canada, I can watch my Packers play on this:

That is part of the 6 plasma screen TVs and two larger screen HDTVs that compose the primary TV wall which was, on this wonderful Sunday afternoon, full of the NFL's best. Well, there were some technical glitches and for a little while one of the plasma TVs was for some reason on a rerun of Just Shoot Me. The rest of the time it was good though. There was also a wholly seperate racebook area and at least 5 random plasma screens scattered around the seating area. The chairs were pretty comfortable where we were sitting, there was a tasty cheap food assortment, and while I am too poor for it now, there is sports gambling, which is an even cooler way to lose money than poker. BTW, they also opened a poker room, which means there are three places to play cards within a half hour of my apartment, at least one of which has 2-4 hold em tables, and thats in Canadian dollars.

Again the Packers lost, but that really doesnt come as much of a surprise at this point, since they suck. It doesnt help that we lost Brett's new go to guy for the year, but thats beside the point. I've adopted an attitude which makes watching the games pretty much just as enjoyable as always, and that is this: I just want to watch Favre play well. If I get to watch #4 throw for some touchdowns and enjoy the game, than Sundays are worthwhile. He looked good in the 2nd half this week, after the two interceptions, one of which was a fluke, but his fault, and the other, which was about half his fault and half the facft that Ferguson hadn't expected to be the new speed-honcho and hence, was not ready to get the Walker-like fade route. While one of the touchdowns was an all but pointless almost game ending drive, it was still a good time. The rest of the NFC North sucked potentially even harder though, with the VIkings taking it from Cinci and Daunte looking like he did 3 years ago. Might put the Moss trade into perspective.

Beyond that I am writing and thinking about debate and trying to get all ramped up for the first tournament of the year. I've put out some decent arguments and I think we could have a quality season opener. Hippo is not excited about us leaving for the weekend, but she is very excited about the fact that she has made a good amount of Persian friends on her new catster account.

Peace,

MB-K

I Know That You're Gonna Have it Your Way or Nothing At All, But I Think You're Moving Too Butt

2005-09-16T22:55:00.000-04:00

The summer reality shows are winding down and it has not been the best season ever. Thats not a diss on the programs, since Big Brother and Rockstar (the two most noteworthy certainly) are both deserving of their respective props. I was too broken up when last writing to mention that Jordis Unga, the queen of rock and roll, was completely fucked over by the boys of INXS, not to mention the voters, who I think are being unfairly dominated by Australian bastards which would be the only possible explanation for Mig's success. Yeah, the night he did Peter Frampton was good, but besides that he is a Russian fighter jet who is 100% mediocre. It won't color their old music for me, but I'm not listening to any new stuff if they choose Mig. J.D, while an asscock, is at least a talented and livewire-y artsy asscock. Mig has nothing going for him besides 1) the fact that when he played the lead in Grease, they prolly didnt need any wardrobe or makeup and 2) he could also be a circus ringleader.

Anyway, Jordis rocked out, with a quality version of We Are The Champions and a original that she wrote with Marty. I know people loved J.D.'s original and it has grown on me now that its been on the show 4 damn times, but I think Jordis singing "baby, baby" over and over to a decent tune beats it every time and there was absolutely no doubt that Marty's "Trees" was better. It sounded, in ways, like great early 90s grunge rock, the first genre of music I really truly loved. Regardless, the point is, we miss you Jordis. Whenever I am next in the TC I will be on the look out for Jordis Unga. She was one of my favorite reality contestants of all time, not just cuz she was from St. Paul, not just cuz I can totally imagine running into her at the Turf some night, not just becuz dredlocks are hawt. She just rocked all around. We miss you Jordis.

Tonight was a funeral ceremony for the other great reality woman of the summer, though she was only my second favorite member on the show. Yep, Janelle took it on the chin when Ivette, who if it were not for Jan's girlfriend/wife, would have less reason to exist than anyone else in the universe, won the final HoH. I should also note that while Katie disputes my claim that April is the dumbest houseguest in history, there is no doubt that Ivette is in that conversation. She confirmed it by selecting--despite, mind you, constantly reminding all of us how much her family could use the money to the point that I kinda want to shoot her family in the head out of general principle (not her girlfriend though, whose comment that she liked Janelle and thought Cappy was a tool made my night a couple weeks ago)--Maggie to accompany her to the final two and solidifying her complete inability to win. If she only loses 6-1 she did well with this jury. Reality TV for the fall has just begun, with Survivor's inagural Mayan adventure this thursday, but I will withhold comment until I can remember at least a couple people's names.

Had a nice conversation with one of my professors this week who was more optimisitic for my options on the job market than anyone else has been. He confirmed for me that even in the event of an unusccesful search I would get some quality experiences out of the deal, so I think all is going according to plan. Other things are falling into place too, since the convos I've had with debaters seem to be yielding fruit and the article I have been writing about CSI: NY is within about 2 hours or so of completion. It turned out better than I expected, actually, I impress myself. Writing critically about TV rocks, btw. I wish there was a Cultural Studies and Television department out there somewhere, cuz I would pwn.

We made some really tasty jumbalaya a bit ago and I am still coming down from a shrimp-sausage-okra induced high. I swear to God that Tops has been stocking fresh okra every time I have been in the produce department until the one night I actually intended to buy it. The canned stuff is fine, but I don't believe I've ever cooked with fresh and it would've been fun to try. I spose living in Minneapolis and Buffalo hasn't put me in the fresh-okra belt of the country, but I've stayed away from a good deal of racist rednecks too I suppose. Thats prolly not really fair to the South, since while they've gotten to avoid a tremendous number of hideous Ole and Lena jokes, they've prolly never had legitimately incredible sweet corn. Though there is no freaking comparison between okra and sweet corn, so thats not really fair to the midwest. Fact of the matter, the Midwest is cooler than the South, and the fact that I have never really been anywhere more Southern than St. Louis, Lexington, or Charlotte does not affect that fact. I mean, even KC has great barbecue. This paragraph turned out way more vicious than I intended it to. It reminds me of one of Mitch Hedberg's old joke (RIP Mitch): "I wrote a letter to my dad and I wanted to write "Dear Dad, I really enjoyed being here" but I screwed up and accidentally wrote "rarely" instead of "really." But I didnt want to start over so I just wrote "I rarely drive steamboats, Dad. There's alot of shit you don't know about me. I know this letter took a real harsh turn from the start."

Hippo always loves that one. Right now, for instance, she laughed and purred at the same time, which resulted in her snorting. Hella cute.

Peace,

MB-K

And it Seems to Me, You Lived Your Life, Like a Candle in the Butt

2005-09-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

Its been a long week, busy with lots of stuff to do and the like. That was extraordinarily descriptive I got ya. Maybe a little more detail would be reasonable.

School is in full swing, my class is going well and though it through my writing off track for a couple days, I have recovered at this point. I will, in the very near future be getting my first real doses of response and commentary on the 100 or so pages I have written in these 4 odd months, so hopefully my hopes and dreams will not be completely crushed. I have also almost fully completed the essay I've proposed on the subject of CSI: NY. The students I have are all remarkably engaged and have gotten some great ideas articulated. I'm really excited about the prospect of discussion with people who entered the class out of a genuine interest in the its subject matter, or at least the idea of literature in general, as opposed to a segment of the general college population which is forced into discussing something which has at best a marginal high-school like relevance. I also am crazy about the idea of reading and grading real papers and doing it on the basis of argument quality instead of logistical crap. We will finish our first book this week and move up the ladder including some theory in the next set. While I may never be confident in my job/economic prospects, I can say witha good amount of confidence that I am a pretty solid teacher.

Debate is also in full swing. We had the first meeting with all the novices yesterday and will leave for Kings College 9 days from now. I'm actually somewhat excited about the prospects for this season, I'm not completely sold on the activity in all its forms yet, but actively coaching again at least reminds me of the things I was originally obsessive about way back in the day and at least on and off during my coaching career. I've got a quality aff mostly written, though it doesnt appear anyone wants to run it, and I'm sure I'll have some quality neg arguments as the year unfolds. Debate was very different when I had the China topic before, but it at least gives me some perspective. I would imagine that competitive impulses will kick in the first time one of my teams gets an outround panel and as fantasy football this weekend reminded me, competition can add a good bit of cayenne to even the most bland weekend in Wilkes-Barre (which, despite all ya-lls fucking overinsistance, is prounced Wilkes-BAR).

Football too, as just mentioned, is back underway. My random Buffalo people team dominated, with Payton Manning and the Colts D coming up strong and I won by about 35 points. The more important league was tragic, as I appeared to be coming back, but succumbed at the last moment to the vicious combo of Warrick Dunn and Alge Crumpler. I got a ridiculous performance by the Bills Defense but an afternoon of serious pain inflicted on the Packers meant that Brett produced only 2 points and indeed, I fell 73 to 75. The Packers game could get a rant of its own, but I will spare all of us the tragedy. Suffice to say that while my pre-season thoughts tended to the 8-8 or 7-9 area, missing the playoffs to what I had expected to be at least a decent Viqueens squad. While after watching a truly pitiful performance against the Lions to open the season and acknowledging the devestating loss of Javon Walker I am prepared to guess something closer to 5-11 or 6-10, I'm not at all confident that Daunte is ready to make a run at the NFC North. I havent really been in "no chance for the Pack" mode for a while, so it might take me a couple weeks to fully adjust, I promise I'll be cool.

TV is also back and I can't explain to you how radical a development that is. We've gotten the premiere of The OC last week and some quality Fox programs, including Prison Break which is so far fascinating and additionally has the great privilege of featuring Marti Noxon. I'm not gonna say that its "this season's Lost" two episodes in, but it has similar qualities. Further TV reviews are on indefinate hold, at least until BB6 winds down and Survivor kicks off with 2 big surprises in the form of returning important castaways. We're back to the time of year where the DVR can really get backed up, so we've got to do some preventative maintenance.

Anyway, I will try to say hey more often this week. Nonethless, Hippo, the neat-freak of a kitten that she is, really wants me to clear the dinner dishes, so I should obey her persistant meows.

Peace,

MB-K